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Just use a little sim city. Queens, Spines and evos in tight places make Hellions unable to enter your base whatsoever.
Honestly, you should have played against it enough to know how to react to it.
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Austria24417 Posts
In my opinion, something has to be done for protoss to balance their matchups or at least change the way they're constructed. Right now, everything is about all ins. If protoss doesn't all in zerg, they're gonna face a 12 minute maxed out roach army and they're gonna die, period. The only player i've ever seen hold it was HerO but even he could only do it with the most amazing micro I've ever seen in sc2.
I'd consider the lategame armies in PvZ relatively even but far too dependent on single actions like whether or not the protoss gets a good vortex off.
PvT has always been a problem for protoss and Terrans have realized that their biggest advantage lies in the early and midgame before protoss gets their splash out. I really don't know what to do about it. The way terran can just drop you without risking anything is just ridiculous in my opinion. I mean what does the Terran lose if his drop fails? He loses marines, maybe marauders and if he screws up hard, maybe a medivac or two. But what does that matter? All those units are cheap as hell in comparison to protoss units, replenished within seconds and, most importantly, cost effective like nothing else in the entire game. So basically Terran gets to do almost risk free damage. It's not like I can clean up a drop and go counterattack immediately, lol. No way you can break a terran in that phase of the game, you're just gonna suicide your whole army.
Now I'm not saying that protoss is super weak and so on, it's just that the current metagame looks horrifying to a protoss player like me. I've started to throw funky things in there but for them work they have to be extreme in some way, which just seems to be the way to go for protoss right now. Parting's triple Nexus build is the best example for that.
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On April 08 2012 08:44 DarkLordOlli wrote:
In my opinion, something has to be done for protoss to balance their matchups or at least change the way they're constructed. Right now, everything is about all ins. If protoss doesn't all in zerg, they're gonna face a 12 minute maxed out roach army and they're gonna die, period. The only player i've ever seen hold it was HerO but even he could only do it with the most amazing micro I've ever seen in sc2.
I'd consider the lategame armies in PvZ relatively even but far too dependent on single actions like whether or not the protoss gets a good vortex off.
PvT has always been a problem for protoss and Terrans have realized that their biggest advantage lies in the early and midgame before protoss gets their splash out. I really don't know what to do about it. The way terran can just drop you without risking anything is just ridiculous in my opinion. I mean what does the Terran lose if his drop fails? He loses marines, maybe marauders and if he screws up hard, maybe a medivac or two. But what does that matter? All those units are cheap as hell in comparison to protoss units, replenished within seconds and, most importantly, cost effective like nothing else in the entire game. So basically Terran gets to do almost risk free damage. It's not like I can clean up a drop and go counterattack immediately, lol. No way you can break a terran in that phase of the game, you're just gonna suicide your whole army.
Now I'm not saying that protoss is super weak and so on, it's just that the current metagame looks horrifying to a protoss player like me. I've started to throw funky things in there but for them work they have to be extreme in some way, which just seems to be the way to go for protoss right now. Parting's triple Nexus build is the best example for that.
Ever heard of forcefielding/forge fast expanding? You do have the most effective counter aggression unit in the game, the sentry, learn to use it. And there is ALWAYS a risk in dropping, if the medevac is spotted by an observer it is an instant 10 supply/however many resources lost, which, especially early game, is HUGE. You also have the most effective scouting in the game with the observer, you can basically see everything that your opponent is doing, 1-1-1 has been figured out big time in TvP, you have received several buffs and Terran has received several nerfs pertaining to this EXACT problem. This post is just straight up biased whining.
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On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:
1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo.
so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do.
2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point.
sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time.
3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_-
4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad?
5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead.
another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument.
my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots?
20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers)
You have some good points, but I'll just respond to point 4.
Basically the guy who brought up "hellions are OP" was talking about heavy early game hellion pressure. In that situation the terran is stopping SVC production to get more hellions. So building the extra gas and taking SVCs off minerals is cutting into his mineral income and hurting his harass.
He ends up either with shitty hellion harass since he's mining gas, or he's got late banshees since he's powering minerals for more hellions. In this case double refinery is definitely bad.
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[QUOTE]On April 08 2012 10:25 titanicnewbie wrote:
[QUOTE]On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:
1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo.
so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do.
2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point.
sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time.
3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_-
4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad?
5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead.
another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument.
my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots?
20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers)[/QUOTE]
One word can sum up the mountain of garbage you just spewed, roach (75/25) done
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On April 08 2012 05:03 tomatriedes wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 04:58 Mehukannu wrote:On April 08 2012 03:19 tomatriedes wrote:On April 08 2012 02:41 Mehukannu wrote:On April 07 2012 14:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 05 2012 04:41 reqc1992 wrote:On April 04 2012 06:58 da_head wrote:On April 04 2012 02:41 reqc1992 wrote:
To fix the Late game TvP , I was thinking about that:why not just put a friendly fire on the colossus so when the chargelots hit the marines they can die just like the marines with the seige tanks. LOL? How does this "fix" late game tvp? It just makes the collosus god awful. just like the tanks and mech in general is god awful vs protoss sir . TvP mech doesn't work because there are multiple Protoss unit counters to that composition, not because of siege tank splash damage. Protoss absolutely needs chargelots to tank damage, force the Terran player to micro the bio, and to deal decent damage. For the chargelots to get instantly incinerated by colossus fire would make the match-up completely broken. I don't see what would be so bad about colossus having friendly fire. If anything it would force protoss do more micro with their units especially with zealots to steer away from the splash and colossi to focus fire on targets that they don't damage zealots. It is not like terran players are already doing that in TvZ match up against banelings (focus fire on banelings and spread marines) only this time it would be little bit different. I think it would make the already dull match-up somewhat interesting and fun to watch. Terran are already 61>39% over protoss in Korea and 54>46% over protoss internationally. Why on earth would you nerf the race which is already doing the worst in that match up? 54-46% isn't that big of difference and is very acceptable for a good game balance and it definitely doesn't show any imbalance in the match-up since that difference is just a small statistical variations. As for korean statistics how about you get a more bigger sample that isn't around ~80 games to show us balance for one match-up, so we wouldn't have a huge statistical variance. If anything, terrans are getting their wins from mid game (timings, all-ins) where there are not even that many colossi on the field. It would at least go on the fix some of the issues such as terrans weak late game and the lack of microable units in the game. You could think that all the protoss buffs and the terran nerf protoss would be doing much better in the match-up. Perhaps something is wrong with the players rather than the race... This could also leads us to think appropriate terrans mid-game nerfs to balance the match up out I never said the match up was imbalanced so stop trying to put words into my mouth. As the person who is calling more protoss to be nerfed you're actually the one who is implying that the match up is imbalanced. My point was why nerf a race that is actually doing worse than another race? It just makes no sense whatsoever. Protoss do not need to be nerfed right now. Terran are doing more than fine.
Huh. I wasn't saying that you said it was imbalanced. It was a statement about the statistic that showed the imbalance. Even though it is little it still can be looked as imbalance. To be honest I didn't even implicate that you even said anything about it, but whatever drives your fancy, I guess.
The thing is, even though we have these statistics to show a race is losing against some other race it still doesn't show how they win or how the match up is played (Think about if we had a match-up which has 50/50 chance to win for both races, but the match would really just be a 20 minutes of turtle with no aggression and it all would end up in a big fight).
I am pretty sure it has been established that terran strength lies in mid-game and weakness in late-game scenarios (here are some statistics). Which shows that terrans are most likely favoring timings and/or all ins in the mid game where they get their tech up rolling sooner than protoss. Just remember that the power of all ins haven't been diminished that much during the few years of the game, so they can still give a lot of wins for terran players.
So if anything we should be trying to come up with ideas as how to fix terrans mid- and late-game issues. Then we could start looking at the problems in PvZ match up and so forth, while trying to promote changes that would increase micro requirements to make the game more interesting to play and watch.
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On April 08 2012 01:19 Southwards wrote:
Complaint:
Mutalisks in ZvP are currently perhaps a little bit to strong in terms of harassment and either force unwinnable base trades or a very disadvantageous macro situation for Protoss.
Solution:
Add an upgrade to the Fleet Beacon that gives cannons the ability to do splash damage to air. The need for such an upgrade coincides nicely to the general timing of a Mothership to counter a Broodlord tech switch after the Protoss has established three bases using the combination of storm, cannons and templar. This allows the Protoss to spread himself out a bit more and take more bases and be much more effective in a forced base trade. By no means do I believe it would be to strong due its extensive position within the tech tree allowing Zerg to still have a really nice timing window to harass effectively with their Mutalisks.
Effects in other Matches:
Fleet Beacon is generally a non existent tech path in PvT and PvP so it should have very minor implications.
ooh thats a nice solution. Should help a little with vT drop harras as well. Better than that flying spash damamge thing i was blizz wanted to put in Hots
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On April 07 2012 23:07 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2012 06:05 TheRabidDeer wrote:
PvZ: Infestor/broodlord/corruptor loses to VR/archon/HT/mothership and whatever mineral dump you choose. Can be pylons and cannons at your expansions to prevent ling runby's or whatever you want. VR/archon/HT/mothership crushes every zerg army. If you want to make a gas argument, then I counter with the gas requirements of the zergs build too. No it doesn't. Spread your BLs and this is no longer the case.
The main issue that VR/archon/ht/mothership has is the infestors and corruptors, not the BL's. The mothership is there as a buffer unit and to help cut the army down a bit. If you kill/nullify the infestors, you 100% win the fight though because VR's tear through corruptors and will then tear through the BL's. Vortex and feedback the infestors, win.
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On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers)
You wanna be realistic? Ok fine a zerg builds an extra queen, 1-2 spine crawlers, extra lings, 1-2 evo chambers and maybe an extra hatchery, all in all zerg players get to USE those extra units/building in the future and it LEADS to a strong mid to late game. the extra queen whether it be 1 or 2 extra WILL be used for either creep spread or moving it to the new third base that most zergs get if a terran expands after the hellions. The evo chambers WILL be used for upgrades for the zerg army that will benefit them in the future. The extra lings WILL be added onto the zerg army whether they go lingfestor or mutaling. The macro hatchery WILL be an added source of zerg larva for their drone/unit making purposes. For the terran player making for than 6 hellions WILL NOT be an added benefit for his army in the long term unless he is going mech. Which means that the zerg player would have the advantage IF the terran player does opt for a huge swell of hellions. The 1-2 extra spinecrawler WILL be used for the defense of zerg bases in the mid-game in case of drops and eventually (if they aren't killed off) be added onto the spinecrawler wall a zerg player would put if going mutas or BLs. And lets be honest here, how would creating a few extra lings and building an extra queen, a spine crawler here or there and tech buildings that a zerg player would build eventually REALLY hinder the economy of the zerg.
The pro replays I'm referring to are the ones where EVERY zerg player has seen before as in a standard 4-6 hellion harass and is seen in nearly every ZvT. Also in accordance with this, a terran player would MOST LIKELY be using the hellions in a creep denying fashion instead of suiciding them into the zerg base. Most of the replays anywhere are shown this, the only reason terran players build any more than 8 hellions is if they are going mech or all-inning a zerg in which if a zerg player holds it off, they automatically win as there is no transition for the terran player. Blue Flame has been significantly nerfed and it would need the terran play at least 3 hellions even with the upgrade to 1 shot a worker and if a zerg player does NOT have the capacity to surround the hellions with the amount of lings he supposedly made like you said and the other 3-4 queens and the ability for workers to pass through units when clicking on a mineral patch, then it is totally the zerg players fault for not doing his job.
Roaches are not the only counter to hellions, have you heard of the mutalisk? Or even the infestor? How about mass zerglings? If you have tunnel vision that the counter to a unit is X unit then I'm sorry you deserve to lose horribly. The help menu suggests that the Ultralisk is the counter to the Marauder but we all know how that turned out to be now do we. And let me emphasize this again: IF THE TERRAN PLAYER QUICKLY MAKES 20 BLUE FLAME HELLIONS AND RUNS IN INTO YOUR BASE THEN HE IS ALL IN AND IF YOU HOLD IT OFF YOU WINS BECAUSE THERE IS NO TRANSITION OUT OF IT!.
Adding gas to the hellions means 3 things, it forces a second refinery for the terran player, it allows for the zerg unlimited map control for a longer amount of time, and it hurts the early game terran economy and timing. Forcing a second refinery does 2 things, it delays a terran player's army and expansion. Terran is a mineral heavy race as all of the vital terran units cost a ton of minerals if going for Bio. This force of second gas before the starport/engiebays/second expansion/tank production delays the production of Marines and lowers the terran's overall supply. Secondly the zerg player will have a huge advantage of map control which allows 2 things: unhindered expansions and vital intelligence. Not having hellions in front of the zerg's base to delay the third allows for massive creep spread and early thirds, this makes the zerg have a huge boost in economy and map control as the creep allows the zerg to easily defend his third and gives vision of the area, couple this with xel'naga towers gives zerg players a tremendous amount of advantages. Finally it hurts the terran's timing as the terran player will have to wait for the gas to finish to allow for constant hellion production. This will also hinder a terran's ability to go Mech as the other core components such as the Thor and Siege Tank require huge amounts of gas and Hellions are used as a mineral sink. A terran player usually does stay at 1 gas before starport and forcing them to get another refinery makes for another play possible that is the Banshee switch which you were complaining about.
High Level Play shows that majority of the hellion usage is creep cleaning and expo delaying not suiciding 20 hellions to kill of drones. I don't know what kind of replays you watch but the majority of those I do show a preference of BioMech or Pure Mech rather than All-Ins. The hellion forces roaches idea that you have is hogwash, because as far as I know having a huge amount of hellions means that all his minerals are tied up there and there WILL be a lack of anti-air defense and as we all know, Mutalisks ARE a very common sight in ZvT. In addition to this, Infestors are also a logical choice as it kills off hellions quite easily. As for the forcing other build from terran, I don't suppose you've heard of mech, I hear its the other terran ZvT strategy. People use this mostly as it basically the "counter" to the mutaling play which the zerg building banelings does against the marine.
If this post still does not convince you then I don't know anymore, it's either you have a huge amount of trouble against terran which I suggest you practice a lot harder, or you are extremely biased and are riding the "TERRAN SO OP" wave that became obsolete 3 patches ago. As for insulting all the gold leaguers out there, I'm sorry I"m not as good as you are great Master's zerg since I've been focusing on my studies and don't have enough time to spend playing my favorite game in the world -_-.
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On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD.
Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into
Terran:
Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas
Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas
Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas
And other races:
Protoss:
Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas
High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas
HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas
DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas
Zerg:
Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas
Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas
Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas
Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas
Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas
Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run.
Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages.
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I feel like Banelings are bad game design:
Why: Too cost ineffective vs top players marines, too cost effective vs lower league players marines.
What I would like instead: Idk some unit thats more about strategical placement like lurkers.
Tanks are bad:
Why: Too expensive for the terrible DPS they do, literally stimmed marines do more DPS if I recall.
What I would Like Instead: Some super upgrade for tanks to make them better but not too strong.
You can tell me tanks are balanced as is but if you look at the trend less and less top pro terrans are using them, because they're nothing but a long range poke made almost soley for the role of exploding banelings or doing weird timings vs protoss. (or mech in TvT)
Mech is too terrible vs protoss, I shouldn't have to just go bio vs protoss. That's bad game design.
Area of Effect Spells in SC2 are too strong in general because of the clumping A.I., I consider this bad game design.
There are too many "hard counters" in sc2 this makes the game coinflippy and boring.
I don't like how the protoss race was balanced around warpgate and forcefield, I feel these to mechanics are fundamentally flawed. (reason why PvP has been so terrible for a long time and why now that it's gotten past 4gate vs 4gate it's just who has the most colossus).
Colossus is a poorly designed unit and I think this is a general opinion shared by most people.
I feel certain strategies are too strong vs certain races, for example marauder+hellion timing pushes vs zerg and immortal/sentry busts vs terran.
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On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages.
You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first"
as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form?
Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it.
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On April 08 2012 18:01 neoghaleon55 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages. You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first" as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form? Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it.
You know what grinds my ears? People crying OP and bitching about it, you don't hear me complaining about Chronoboost and Warp-In, or Inject Larva just accept that each race has its own advantages. Besides I'm not even Terran I switched from Zerg to Protoss and even I can see that Terrans need the MULEs to keep up with the other races. Mining faster is all well and good but you have to consider all the infrastructure Terran's have to build while Protosses(like me) need only some tech buildings, between 1-3 Robos and gateways(about 10-15 still less than 10 barracks, 2 factories, 2 starports with addons) or Hatchesries with Queens and tech buildings for Zerg. No you're right about Terrans getting the advantage of more income but the other races have equally powerful ways of spending their relatively lower income. Besides getting more minerals doesn't matter as much to Zerg or Protoss as their important units are very gas heavy instead of the mineral starved terrans.
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On April 08 2012 18:27 timoi210 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 18:01 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages. You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first" as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form? Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it. You know what grinds my ears? People crying OP and bitching about it, you don't hear me complaining about Chronoboost and Warp-In, or Inject Larva just accept that each race has its own advantages. Besides I'm not even Terran I switched from Zerg to Protoss and even I can see that Terrans need the MULEs to keep up with the other races. Mining faster is all well and good but you have to consider all the infrastructure Terran's have to build while Protosses(like me) need only some tech buildings, between 1-3 Robos and gateways(about 10-15 still less than 10 barracks, 2 factories, 2 starports with addons) or Hatchesries with Queens and tech buildings for Zerg. No you're right about Terrans getting the advantage of more income but the other races have equally powerful ways of spending their relatively lower income. Besides getting more minerals doesn't matter as much to Zerg or Protoss as their important units are very gas heavy instead of the mineral starved terrans.
Thank you for that blanket statement that says absolutely nothing specific.
I want to make it clear that I don't think any of Terran's unit is overpowered, only early game mule is questionably OP.
Once it gets to midgame, the balance equalizes out fairly well, but early game Terran is absurdly strong. The mule causes all these problems because considering this is an economy-based RTS...giving one race MORE economy than the others doesn't help.
My suggestion is pretty clean, make orbital command cost 50 gas or 100gas. That way Terran will have to choose whether to do that 2rax bunker and delay their orbital, or get the orbital and weaken the strong early game all-ins.
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On April 08 2012 18:00 hersenen wrote:
I feel like Banelings are bad game design:
Why: Too cost ineffective vs top players marines, too cost effective vs lower league players marines.
What I would like instead: Idk some unit thats more about strategical placement like lurkers.
Tanks are bad:
Why: Too expensive for the terrible DPS they do, literally stimmed marines do more DPS if I recall.
What I would Like Instead: Some super upgrade for tanks to make them better but not too strong.
You can tell me tanks are balanced as is but if you look at the trend less and less top pro terrans are using them, because they're nothing but a long range poke made almost soley for the role of exploding banelings or doing weird timings vs protoss. (or mech in TvT)
Mech is too terrible vs protoss, I shouldn't have to just go bio vs protoss. That's bad game design.
Area of Effect Spells in SC2 are too strong in general because of the clumping A.I., I consider this bad game design.
There are too many "hard counters" in sc2 this makes the game coinflippy and boring.
I don't like how the protoss race was balanced around warpgate and forcefield, I feel these to mechanics are fundamentally flawed. (reason why PvP has been so terrible for a long time and why now that it's gotten past 4gate vs 4gate it's just who has the most colossus).
Colossus is a poorly designed unit and I think this is a general opinion shared by most people.
I feel certain strategies are too strong vs certain races, for example marauder+hellion timing pushes vs zerg and immortal/sentry busts vs terran.
Speaking of bad game design, did you notice the game is released in a trilogy? Which makes me think that every balance patch/discussion is in vein until every addon is released -.-
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On April 08 2012 19:18 neoghaleon55 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 18:27 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 18:01 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages. You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first" as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form? Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it. You know what grinds my ears? People crying OP and bitching about it, you don't hear me complaining about Chronoboost and Warp-In, or Inject Larva just accept that each race has its own advantages. Besides I'm not even Terran I switched from Zerg to Protoss and even I can see that Terrans need the MULEs to keep up with the other races. Mining faster is all well and good but you have to consider all the infrastructure Terran's have to build while Protosses(like me) need only some tech buildings, between 1-3 Robos and gateways(about 10-15 still less than 10 barracks, 2 factories, 2 starports with addons) or Hatchesries with Queens and tech buildings for Zerg. No you're right about Terrans getting the advantage of more income but the other races have equally powerful ways of spending their relatively lower income. Besides getting more minerals doesn't matter as much to Zerg or Protoss as their important units are very gas heavy instead of the mineral starved terrans. Thank you for that blanket statement that says absolutely nothing specific. I want to make it clear that I don't think any of Terran's unit is overpowered, only early game mule is questionably OP. Once it gets to midgame, the balance equalizes out fairly well, but early game Terran is absurdly strong. The mule causes all these problems because considering this is an economy-based RTS...giving one race MORE economy than the others doesn't help. My suggestion is pretty clean, make orbital command cost 50 gas or 100gas. That way Terran will have to choose whether to do that 2rax bunker and delay their orbital, or get the orbital and weaken the strong early game all-ins.
Doesn't your "clean" suggestion mess up every current terran buildorder by alot? Also it makes an orbital into the most costly expand option by far.
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On April 08 2012 19:33 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 19:18 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 18:27 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 18:01 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages. You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first" as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form? Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it. You know what grinds my ears? People crying OP and bitching about it, you don't hear me complaining about Chronoboost and Warp-In, or Inject Larva just accept that each race has its own advantages. Besides I'm not even Terran I switched from Zerg to Protoss and even I can see that Terrans need the MULEs to keep up with the other races. Mining faster is all well and good but you have to consider all the infrastructure Terran's have to build while Protosses(like me) need only some tech buildings, between 1-3 Robos and gateways(about 10-15 still less than 10 barracks, 2 factories, 2 starports with addons) or Hatchesries with Queens and tech buildings for Zerg. No you're right about Terrans getting the advantage of more income but the other races have equally powerful ways of spending their relatively lower income. Besides getting more minerals doesn't matter as much to Zerg or Protoss as their important units are very gas heavy instead of the mineral starved terrans. Thank you for that blanket statement that says absolutely nothing specific. I want to make it clear that I don't think any of Terran's unit is overpowered, only early game mule is questionably OP. Once it gets to midgame, the balance equalizes out fairly well, but early game Terran is absurdly strong. The mule causes all these problems because considering this is an economy-based RTS...giving one race MORE economy than the others doesn't help. My suggestion is pretty clean, make orbital command cost 50 gas or 100gas. That way Terran will have to choose whether to do that 2rax bunker and delay their orbital, or get the orbital and weaken the strong early game all-ins. Doesn't your "clean" suggestion mess up every current terran buildorder by alot? Also it makes an orbital into the most costly expand option by far.
1. You don't need an orbital to expand......
2. It's been done before, blizzard moved supply depot before barracks. People deal with it. No biggie.
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On April 08 2012 19:43 neoghaleon55 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 19:33 karpo wrote:On April 08 2012 19:18 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 18:27 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 18:01 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages. You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first" as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form? Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it. You know what grinds my ears? People crying OP and bitching about it, you don't hear me complaining about Chronoboost and Warp-In, or Inject Larva just accept that each race has its own advantages. Besides I'm not even Terran I switched from Zerg to Protoss and even I can see that Terrans need the MULEs to keep up with the other races. Mining faster is all well and good but you have to consider all the infrastructure Terran's have to build while Protosses(like me) need only some tech buildings, between 1-3 Robos and gateways(about 10-15 still less than 10 barracks, 2 factories, 2 starports with addons) or Hatchesries with Queens and tech buildings for Zerg. No you're right about Terrans getting the advantage of more income but the other races have equally powerful ways of spending their relatively lower income. Besides getting more minerals doesn't matter as much to Zerg or Protoss as their important units are very gas heavy instead of the mineral starved terrans. Thank you for that blanket statement that says absolutely nothing specific. I want to make it clear that I don't think any of Terran's unit is overpowered, only early game mule is questionably OP. Once it gets to midgame, the balance equalizes out fairly well, but early game Terran is absurdly strong. The mule causes all these problems because considering this is an economy-based RTS...giving one race MORE economy than the others doesn't help. My suggestion is pretty clean, make orbital command cost 50 gas or 100gas. That way Terran will have to choose whether to do that 2rax bunker and delay their orbital, or get the orbital and weaken the strong early game all-ins. Doesn't your "clean" suggestion mess up every current terran buildorder by alot? Also it makes an orbital into the most costly expand option by far. 1. You don't need an orbital to expand...... 2. It's been done before, blizzard moved supply depot before barracks. People deal with it. No biggie.
Terrans today DO need orbitals when they expand to keep up with other races, this makes their expansions much more costly than the other two races. It also totally changes the early game if you need 50-100 gas for orbital, it will affect upgrade timings and everything requiring gas. It's a much bigger change than supply before barracks.
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On April 08 2012 19:48 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 19:43 neoghaleon55 wrote:
1. You don't need an orbital to expand......
2. It's been done before, blizzard moved supply depot before barracks. People deal with it. No biggie. Terrans today DO need orbitals when they expand to keep up with other races, this makes their expansions much more costly than the other two races. It also totally changes the early game if you need 50-100 gas for orbital, it will affect upgrade timings and everything requiring gas. It's a much bigger change than supply before barracks.
Affecting the timing is essentially the point.
50 gas isn't too much to ask, it's negligible midgame/late game, but it reduces the effectiveness of mule/all ins so Terrans won't win so often below the 8 minute mark.
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On April 08 2012 19:18 neoghaleon55 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 18:27 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 18:01 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 17:53 timoi210 wrote:On April 08 2012 06:58 neoghaleon55 wrote:On April 08 2012 04:21 Ballistixz wrote:On April 07 2012 21:32 timoi210 wrote:On April 07 2012 14:01 Ballistixz wrote:
problem: Hellions are way to strong for there cost. if a hellion gets inside of a zerg base at all they can be insanely cost effective. 2 hellions alone can easily mess over the zerg economy if the zerg player messes up even slightly. this is why u have players basically suiciding/throwing away 5-6 hellions (sometimes even as much as 8) at a time to destroy drones. why? because hellions only cost minerals, so as long as u kill a significant amount of drones (which you WILL if u get that many hellions in a zerg base) they have more then payed for themselves. not only that but mules make hellions that much more powerful for there cost.
of course zerg can stop this by blocking the ramp with queens or with sim city spines/evos, but the zerg better make damn sure that he doesn't screw up at all with his blockade or otherwise it can be game ending. which brings me to my next point. if u make enough hellions the zerg is basically forced to make roaches to counter it. a mineral heavy unit is forcing you to make gas heavy units, something that should never happen IMHO. not only that but lets assume that the zerg messed up and didnt block off his ramp in time and 4 hellions get in. just 400 minerals and its pretty much game over for zerg as there is no real way to fight against it with slow lings. hell, even 2 hellions (200 minerals) can potentially end the game for zerg. again, YES IT CAN BE STOPED, BUT, the fact that 200-400 minerals worth of units are able to END THE GAME just because u messed up ur wall/block is disgusting.
another problem is that since hellions only cost minerals a terran can easily make other gas heavy harass units like banshee. while you're heavily focused on defending against hellions the terran can just start making banshees for a secondary harass or he just start making tanks for a push. no real risk involved for the terran even if he loses all of his hellions. the mere presence of hellions will force zerg to stop making drones and keep him from taking a 3rd really fast. that is fine and dandy, but not for the hellions cost.. the fact that hellions only cost minerals is the main and only problem with the unit.
Solution: very simple, have hellions cost gas. 100 minerals and 50 gas per hellion seems reasonable. hell, even 100 minerals and 25 gas at the very least. like i said before, hellions are way to powerful against zerg to be mineral only. get enough of them and they make zerglings virtually useless on top of being a potential instant early game ender. having hellions cost gas however justifies all of this imo. terrans will no longer just throw away hellions because they know they can end the game if they do. they will be more protective of there hellions and smarter with them.
Side effect: gas heavy terran builds would probably be delayed by a good amount of time if the terran goes hellion focused. but this isnt really a bad thing, i feel that out of all the 3 races, terran is by far the most versatile and can adapt to just about any kind of build change quite easily. fewer hellions might also be produced off of 1 base play, but that is the entire point. massing 10+ hellions off of 1 base and is kinda ridiculous given that they are almost as fast as speedlings and have a very good aoe on top of that. so having them cost gas justify how powerful they are. I can definitely see how biased you are about this. Before you start blasting away about how OP another race is, at least take time to either play it yourself or watch a significant number of high level replays because most of your arguments sound like "TERRAN OP.". Argument Number 1: Mineral CostYou say that hellions *only* cost minerals and a player *only* needs 4-8? Do you even realize how large 8 hellions are? thats 2 Command Centers/Nexii and 2 2/3s Hatcheries. Are you saying that the terran player's ONLY source of EARLY GAME map control which is the Hellions in OP? Do you even factor in the tech and time needed to get out the hellions? (ie. 100 gas to factory then reactor). Argument Number 2: Counterability Who says a zerg NEEDS to make roaches? If you watch replays you can see that most competent zerg players use a combination of queens, zerglings and spinecrawlers(usually just 1) to either forces the terran player back or to outright kill them if he suicides them into your base. Zerglings with speed outrun hellions on creep and hellions ONLY direct counter Zerglings IF AND ONLY IF they are LINED UP, otherwise if surrounded or even a minor sandwich will cause all the hellions to die. If you ARE forced into roaches due to mass mass mass helions then at least know this, the terran player's tech and unit composition are way behind due to all his minerals dumped into hellions not marines as well as having only 1 gas and no starport and Command Center in sight. Argument Number 3: UsabilityA terran player makes hellions because of three reasons: Map Control/Light Harass, Mech Play or All In/Heavy Harass. Map Control is what most macro-oriented terrans would build 2-6 hellions for as in the early early game, the zerg player with the presence of zerglings will have both the mobility and firepower to shut down most types of marine play. This map control allows the zerg to both expand at will and extend his reach via creep spread. This is why they go for hellions because it allows the terran player to force the zerg player to stay home in case of a runby and to deny creep tumors. Secondly, a Mech Play is viable if the terran chooses to go for the Blue Flame Upgrade. Finally, the last play is the All In/Heavy Harass which is what you are arguing against. Like what I said earlier a mass hellion play will be shut down through the use of zerglings, queens and spine crawlers, and if the terran player goes for a mass hellion All In then all a zerg player has to do is to hold it off and not only is the zerg ahead due to economy (on 2 bases, Queens, lack of second Orbital Command), but also in tech (Terran player's lack of starport, Marines, Tanks, Upgrades) as roaches allow for a roach bust play couple this with the terran player's need to expand to stay in the game would lead to a win for the zerg. Argument Number 4: Banshee Tech SwitchThe viability of a banshee tech switch can only happen if 3 things occur: the terran player makes only 4-6 hellions or lose significant marine/tank production and a late expo, the zerg player does not go for a fast lair, and the zerg player overreacts by making too many zerglings. Normally, a quick hellion-banshee double harass can only happen if the terran player creates the bare minimum number of hellions that would illicit a defensive response from the zerg which is 4-6 hellion. This is because the ability to make hellions hinder the production of other important units such as the marine, siege tank, command center and obviously the starport. The need for gas also forces the terran player to go double refinery further limiting his mineral intake. Secondly, a fast lair totally shuts down any type of banshee play because of 2 things: overseers and MUTALISKS. Lastly as a zerg player, it is VERY IMPORTANT to not overreact against the hellions in front of the base. 4 hellions would require about 5-7 pairs of lings as well as a spine crawler and that WILL dissuade any type of runby or he WILL lose a command center's worth of resources. In ConclusionMaking a gas requirement for hellions is highly unnecessary as there are already significant factors that delay any type of hellion play. High level Zerg play also demonstrates the best way to counter and deflect any type of terran hellion aggression. As a former plat zerg player now gold protoss (Yes I'm that bad) please do your research before coming out with another baseless "argument" here as I had no problems whatsoever against hellions. Midgame however, there might be some problems if you aren't prepared. 1: considering how much minerals a zerg needs to stop 4-8 hellions? no its not alot. lets be realistic here. u will need about 1-2 spines almost guaranteed. thats 100-200 minerals right there. u will ned a extra queen to fend off the hellions and to block ramp so thats another 150 minerals. if you are going to do a cim city then u will need a evo chamber (2 evos on certain maps) so thats 75-150 minerals for early evo. so in static defense/cim city alone u have 325-500 minerals. now add in the cost of lings or forced roaches to that mix. so no, i dont think its alot considering what the zerg has to make in order to defend against that many hellions. infact if u force units instead of drones then hellions are doing its job that way as well. you have to think deeper about these things. its not as simple as "4 hellions is a CC! thats alot of money!" think of what those 4 hellions are making the zerg player do. 2: sigh, i really hate when someone says "watch pro player replays for an example!". i can easily bring up pro replays of players LOSING to hellion play just as well as i can pull up a replay of a pro player defending it. that is not the point. sure u can defend 4 or so hellions without making a single roach. u can even defend against 6. but when the number starts to grow beyond a certain point you NEED roaches. you cannot just defend 20 hellions with lings only.... especially if those hellions are blue flamed. the terran would have to mess up royally for lings to ever kill that many hellions as be cost effective at the same time. 3: umm, ok? i know what hellions do and i know what they are used for. but what does that have to do with them costing a lil bit of gas? im not saying to remove the unit from the game -_- 4: "forcing" a terran to go double refinery? is it so hard for u to go quad refinery at ur natural? or are u always on 1 base? im not sure that i understand where u are going with this. since when is double refinery bad? 5: high level terran play also demonstrates that if a high level zerg messes up even in the slightest and lets hellions in his base he can pretty much auto GG. it has happened to idra many, many times. so again, i dont see a point in trying to prove me wrong with VoDs/replays.... just like u can bring up a replay showing a zerg defending against hellions i can pull up a replay of a zerg losing to hellions harshly. instead of focusing/copying pro players and using VoDS/replays to try and prove an argument, please use your mind and ability to think instead. another thing, i know exactly how to defend against hellions. i even stated it in my post. i also stated the hellion, as a unit, is not OP. that was never my argument. my argument mainly applies to the mid-late game when terrans start to mass hellions. when you mass enough hellions you are basically making a entire unit useless in the match up purely because of its "hard counter" feature. that is actually quite insane if u think about it. look at it from a zerg point of view. what unit does zerg has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does toss has that completely stops terran from making marines? what unit does terran have that completly stops toss from making zealots? 20+ blue flame hellions means zergins are useless. maybe not in low plat and below, but even in high platinum higher terran hellion micro gets better and better and these things start to show. u CAN NOT fight that many hellions with just lings, u need roaches. idc if u can beat 20+ blue flame hellions with 0-0 lings in gold league, all that means is that the terran player is insanely bad (no offense to the gold leaguers) You make it sound like it's hard for Terrans to get more minerals... especially when they have the free mineral button call the mule early game. The larvae mechanic and chrono boost does not compare well in the early stages in the game. That said, I do not think Hellions are too overpowered, maybe a little. My only gripe is that it's a relatively safe opening. The risk/reward ratio is lopsided in favor of terrans. Consider if Terran butchers the strategy and loses 6 hellions...yea that's 600 minerals. But if the Zerg mismicro, he loses the game.... big difference between being behind and being DEAD. Terran's are a mineral heavy race, remember that the core components of terran play is the Marine. Terran's dont have a huge gas sink that they produce like the Collosus, HT, Archon, Baneling, Mutas, Infestors, BL. All the terran gas goes into Terran: Siege Tanks - 150 mins 125 gas Medevacs - 100 mins 100 gas Ghost - 200 mins 100 gas And other races: Protoss: Collosus - 300 mins 200 gas High Templar - 50 mins 150 gas HT Archon - 100 mins 300 gas DT Archon - 250 mins 250 gas Zerg: Zergling Baneling - 50 mins 25 gas Mutalisk - 100 mins 100 gas Infestor - 100 mins 150 gas Corruptor to Broodlord - 300 mins 250 gas Ultralisk - 300 mins 200 gas Then factoring in that a terran player wants to have around 50-70 marines at all times then we can all establish that a terran needs minerals. Mules are not a free mineral source, keep in mind that even though the terran player does get income faster, it does also mean he mines out his bases quite quickly and that will be detrimental in the long run. Speaking of the reactored hellions being a safe opening, it really isn't as all openings are counterable by certain builds its just like saying FFE is just so good against zerg as the risk/reward being the risk is a roach/bane or roach or bane bust and the reward is an expansion and a possible zerg natural deny through a cannon contain then there u have it both the protoss and terran have an equally safe opener against zerg as these races have a quick ranged damage dealer while zerg starts off with the 4 range roach. This doesn't mean that zerg is underpowered though as a quick expanding protoss/terran can be exploited through an easy 3 base zerg. Meaning to say all races have their advantages. You know it really grinds my gears when people cry "boo hoo, terrans will mine out their expansion first" as if it's a bad thing. Are you seriously saying that having a better mining rate is detrimental in any way/shape/form? Terran get the full benefit of all the minerals much earlier than anyone else, which gives them a better army in the early game. If that Terran doesn't expand, then it's his fault for spending beyond his means. There is nothing detrimental about it. You know what grinds my ears? People crying OP and bitching about it, you don't hear me complaining about Chronoboost and Warp-In, or Inject Larva just accept that each race has its own advantages. Besides I'm not even Terran I switched from Zerg to Protoss and even I can see that Terrans need the MULEs to keep up with the other races. Mining faster is all well and good but you have to consider all the infrastructure Terran's have to build while Protosses(like me) need only some tech buildings, between 1-3 Robos and gateways(about 10-15 still less than 10 barracks, 2 factories, 2 starports with addons) or Hatchesries with Queens and tech buildings for Zerg. No you're right about Terrans getting the advantage of more income but the other races have equally powerful ways of spending their relatively lower income. Besides getting more minerals doesn't matter as much to Zerg or Protoss as their important units are very gas heavy instead of the mineral starved terrans. Thank you for that blanket statement that says absolutely nothing specific. I want to make it clear that I don't think any of Terran's unit is overpowered, only early game mule is questionably OP. Once it gets to midgame, the balance equalizes out fairly well, but early game Terran is absurdly strong. The mule causes all these problems because considering this is an economy-based RTS...giving one race MORE economy than the others doesn't help. My suggestion is pretty clean, make orbital command cost 50 gas or 100gas. That way Terran will have to choose whether to do that 2rax bunker and delay their orbital, or get the orbital and weaken the strong early game all-ins.
How is the mule OP? Potentially the protoss has the ability to get workers 20% faster and the zerg has the ability to spawn 10+ workers in a single production cycle, do you even know the reason why Terran has the MULE? It's because each building made needs a single SCV inactive for a certain amount of time. That means less mining and therefore less income. Terrans don't have the ability to produce 10+ workers or to speed up their scv production through chronoboost and thats why they need the MULE. Adding a gas requirement further hinders the Terran players build order and delays their expansion. You might think that mining gas is easy because the other races have their extractors/assimilators up much earlier as its needed for thier build order. Command Centers already cost the most amount of resources and time factoring in the PF and OC upgrade and you want to make it more expensive? From your responses I can clearly tell you're a zerg player as bunker rushes only happen in ZvT and I can tell you that a terran player bunker rushing you will be significantly set back as they sent at least 2 SCVs(keep in mind Terran makes the fewest and slowest workers) to build. Honestly you're grasping at straws as instead of reading my entire post, you focus on a SINGLE STATEMENT instead of the entire thing. In response to your question: No the MULE is not OP as Terran makes fewer SCVs(Zerg can spawn a lot through larva injects) and needs them to build buildings.
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