EPTThis might be one of those things you'd want a base understanding about if you want a balance thread.
Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 25
| Forum Index > SC2 General |
|
Resistentialism
Canada688 Posts
This might be one of those things you'd want a base understanding about if you want a balance thread. | ||
|
Ihpares
United States40 Posts
On August 18 2011 09:00 Bagi wrote: I'm not sure what your complaint is here. If you lose 5-6 hellions and don't do economical damage, you're behind as terran, trust me. No you probably can't as the zerg just go and kill them right away, but you are free to drone up once the hellions die and get a huge advantage because of it. I hope you realize how much terrans rely on this map control and early harass, because without it the zerg would be able to always play the game of drones and you could never keep up as terran. Roach builds are also getting popular, and very good against hellion openings. The problem is, the 5-6 hellions are almost guaranteed to do damage (Especially on Xel'naga). The only way to actually stop 5-6 Blue Flame Hellions from doing any damage is to invest into spines/roaches, which cuts your drone production down to a level equal to the Terran's SCV count (assuming a MULE counts as 4.5 SCVs). So, while a Zerg is pumping units to prevent the Blue Flame Hellions, the Terran washes with the Zerg, simply by delaying the creation of drones. This means that so long as the Terran kills a FEW drones (and honestly, it's not hard to roast ~10 drones with ~5 Blue Flame Hellion), they actually put themselves ahead. Oh, but I will commend you on one point: Roaches are the future of ZvT, and yeah Roach builds are getting popular. As Terran moves to Mech, Zergs will move to Roaches, and BFH openings will become slightly less effective, but the fact that the very threat of them disallows a Zerg to drone up is proving to be a major problem right now. | ||
|
emc
United States3088 Posts
On August 18 2011 13:25 Ihpares wrote: The problem is, the 5-6 hellions are almost guaranteed to do damage (Especially on Xel'naga). The only way to actually stop 5-6 Blue Flame Hellions from doing any damage is to invest into spines/roaches, which cuts your drone production down to a level equal to the Terran's SCV count (assuming a MULE counts as 4.5 SCVs). So, while a Zerg is pumping units to prevent the Blue Flame Hellions, the Terran washes with the Zerg, simply by delaying the creation of drones. This means that so long as the Terran kills a FEW drones (and honestly, it's not hard to roast ~10 drones with ~5 Blue Flame Hellion), they actually put themselves ahead. Oh, but I will commend you on one point: Roaches are the future of ZvT, and yeah Roach builds are getting popular. As Terran moves to Mech, Zergs will move to Roaches, and BFH openings will become slightly less effective, but the fact that the very threat of them disallows a Zerg to drone up is proving to be a major problem right now. I don't see a problem with your anaylsis, but I'd even say BFH hellion openings put you severely behind as terran if you don't manage to kill a single drone. I've been doing 5 roach pressure on 2 hatch and leaving like 3 roaches behind to counter any BFH harass. The pressure works so well because they have 3-5 marines only with hellions that do zilch to roaches and their siege tanks are far from arriving. The main idea here is to kill off scvs as they come to mass repair, this pressure if done correctly and at the right timing utterly destroys the terran because they chose a risky tech that loses handily to roaches. The rough build order: 14 hatch (15 works too, just add +1 supply for all my timings below) 14 pool 16 gas 15 overlord 15 queen 17 ling 18 ling 21-22 roach warren First 100 gas goes to ling speed, next gas goes purely to roach and extra minerals go to drones and a 2nd queen at the natural. You will have roaches out in time to combat 2 hellions and you will have roaches headed to his base as he gets 4 hellions or 3 hellions if he chose the slayers build and begins BFH. There is a meta game going on here though, because most terrans will open reactor hellion into BFH hellion, the roach push is the perfect counter. However, if they are playing a more safe style then they could switch their reactor factory to a tech lab and begin siege tanks instead of BFH which counters the roach push to a degree (you will still do damage but terran can often end up even or sometimes ahead with a mass repaired tank). and BFH drops can be predicted with good overlord spread and suiciding zerglings to see his army comp. Mostly marines and BFH hellions will usually indicate a drop and roach/ling/queen deals with this perfectly fine. | ||
|
Precision
United States67 Posts
[QUOTE]On August 18 2011 13:25 Ihpares wrote: [QUOTE]On August 18 2011 09:00 Bagi wrote: [QUOTE]On August 18 2011 04:28 j4vz wrote: The rough build order: 14 hatch (15 works too, just add +1 supply for all my timings below) 14 pool 16 gas 15 overlord 15 queen 17 ling 18 ling 21-22 roach warren First 100 gas goes to ling speed, next gas goes purely to roach and extra minerals go to drones and a 2nd queen at the natural. You will have roaches out in time to combat 2 hellions and you will have roaches headed to his base as he gets 4 hellions or 3 hellions if he chose the slayers build and begins BFH.[/QUOTE] I don't know how silly this is, but I actually skip the ling speed and the second pair of lings. When the pool finishes, I build the queen and roach warren right away. Expo to natural as warren is building, and it seems to fend off BFH. I only play at a Diamond level though, so I can't speak for Master/GM and tighter timings. I guess I never really saw the necessity of spending 100 gas for ling speed if I don't need them (or at least early in the game), so I'd use that gas for initial roaches and then quickly Lair tech instead. | ||
|
Flonkkertiin
United States24 Posts
| ||
|
Techno
1900 Posts
As someone who opens reactor hellion -> blue flame with an elevator option every TvZ lately, I gotta say I don't think they're imbalanced. Most Zergs I face in NA Master League seem to know exactly how to respond and I often see 3-4 queens, and a simcity wall when I get there with my blue flame. Suiciding the Hellions to kill drones should never work out against a modern Zerg. You can usually get some drone kills or damage with the intial 2 reactored hellions, but its a super thin line because they are your entire defense for getting your expansion up, so if you lose them its really bad. On August 18 2011 14:35 Flonkkertiin wrote: As scary as Bfh's are, as a zerg player i don't think they are imbalanced, they require a reaction from the zerg player that isn't ideal, and if the reaction isn't there they can be fatal, but that doesn't mean it is overpowered. The thing i currently worry about is tvp. Not so much the 1-1-1, I think that will be figured out eventually, I worry that ghosts are just too powerful. IMHO reverting the cost of ghosts or decreasing their range would be a fix that wouldn't be too powerful of a nerf. As it is ghosts are better or as good as high templar, but require less gas. If they are going to stay the same cost i think that they should have equal range to HT to give both players equal micro chance. Ghosts are insanely good against Protoss. Infact, they are so good that they are basically the entire matchup right now. If you nerf Ghosts past a certain threshold, the Terran metagame would have to shift dramatically away from bio in the mid game, and this would negatively affect Terran against infestors and Hive Tech, which is highly unnecessary. Frankly most of the Terran victories over Protoss in the GSL has been because of superior unit control or the 1/1/1 build. For example, last night MVPGenius is chilllin at the watchtower, and by chillin I mean not even looking at his units as they get EMPd and killed.. | ||
|
Sabu113
United States11035 Posts
I'd say feedback is significantly harder to execute than emp while not nearly as powerful in affecting the main battle. Idk some of the qq from terrans about lategame seems like they're complaining about the game becoming balanced after a certain point. X vikings you neutralize my collosi fairly straight forward. 1-3 good emps and I am done. You cut threw my army like butter and I can't retreat from it. You also can still drop about. Idk lategame TvP seems emminently doable for terran it's just that they have to deal with a toss that can put some real killing pressure on (which it really cant do effectively/safely earlier on unlike early terran bio pokes.) An emp tweak might be on the menu atleast after ghosts get their gas cost reverted. Drops are also seem to be much more difficult to respond to as a toss than to execute as a terran with the only possible exception MMA style multi multi drops. Bleh I vaguely wish bliz hadn't thrown bw so harshly out the window. The tank nerf really ended its viability and the insane marine dps combined with medivac healing rate and marauders mean that mmm is such a potent and mobile force throughout the game. I'll agree that ghost tweaks need to be careful because the wrong tweak can make the matchup unwinable (I mean we toss were yelling at terrans to use ghosts back when KA was popular). | ||
|
SoKHo
Korea (South)1081 Posts
On August 17 2011 16:09 GoKu` wrote: Ugg well hopefully this thread goes good, but i forsee it getting shutdown after a couple days but because i've been thinking about this a lot ill put in my 2 cents. So, right now there are a lot of Talks about Mech + Ghost TvZ, And as a GM Terran, i feel that this could be very terran favored. Not because of the Composition or really Ghost. Ghost vs Infestor battles seem to be even. But really i thnink the problem with the composition is how easy it is to do insane amounts of damage with BLueflame hellions while being able to get your Mech ball up. Also the ghost is fine, but i don't know how i feel that it counters almost every unit cost for cost. I think Ultra's need to be more effective against Ghost play otherwise we will never see ultra's used again. I personally think that Ultra's need some kind of buff (maybe no magic spells or something) because Ghost i beleive should counter Broodlords, but... they deal with late game Broodlord into Ultra transitions too easy and 10 ghost with full energy beat 15 ultras with 3-5 with just snipes alone. Nerfing the ghost in almost anyway would probably just Reverse the order. And i think that hellions probably need a look at, not necessarily imbalanced but they are very strong and hard to deal with as Zerg, but i dont know thats my 2 cents. hmmm i was listening to jinro's stream and he was answering questions/analyzing replays. He actually said that ghost/mech is trash. He didn't go in depth into it. | ||
|
UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
I say this because of the nature of splash damage: two blue flame hellions can get upwards of 20 zerglings or 10 drones in a single attack, which happens in the blink of an eye. In contrast, killing two hellions before they do that damage requires superb micro, extraordinary map awareness, knowledge of the threat beforehand, and totally fluid mechanics. Compare all that preparation to the ease with which a Terran player micro's his hellions, whether they do damage or not: go in to the natural, get behind the minerals or geysers, and attack any old drone in the line for game-ending damage, right then and there. It's not difficult for them, it's not APM intensive, and it's definitely not going to absolutely lose them the game right there if they fuck it up, whereas defending from them as a Zerg player is all of the above. | ||
|
epikAnglory
United States1120 Posts
I think it would be perfect if Warp Prisms already start with a speed upgrade, what do you guys think? Increasing the warp-in radius would also be nice as you can't really use Warp Prisms to reinforce once mid-game starts, and the max amount of Stalkers you can warp in feels like 5 to 6. | ||
|
EMPaThy789
New Zealand878 Posts
On August 18 2011 14:58 Techno wrote: Ghosts are insanely good against Protoss. Infact, they are so good that they are basically the entire matchup right now. If you nerf Ghosts past a certain threshold, the Terran metagame would have to shift dramatically away from bio in the mid game, and this would negatively affect Terran against infestors and Hive Tech, which is highly unnecessary. Frankly most of the Terran victories over Protoss in the GSL has been because of superior unit control or the 1/1/1 build. For example, last night MVPGenius is chilllin at the watchtower, and by chillin I mean not even looking at his units as they get EMPd and killed.. imo the problem doesnt lay with emp but rather with concussive shells. a protoss who gets their army emped while not looking simply has to engage as concussive shells will kill half of your army anyway if you choose to run away. the same could be said for fungle imo, especially against terran where u can lose 40+ marines to a few fungles when u werent looking. | ||
|
serge
Russian Federation142 Posts
On August 18 2011 16:17 epikAnglory wrote: What is TeamLiquid's opinion on the chance that Warp Prisms were be buffed? I know many of you will say they are already good and just underestimated, but honestly you can drop units with any unit in the game, it is just that the defender underestimates them and never prepare. Protoss always has to prepare for Terran drops, and has to have good minimap vision and cannons against a Zerg with Baneling and Drop tech. I think it would be perfect if Warp Prisms already start with a speed upgrade, what do you guys think? Increasing the warp-in radius would also be nice as you can't really use Warp Prisms to reinforce once mid-game starts, and the max amount of Stalkers you can warp in feels like 5 to 6. I just got rolled by VTwhiplash when he kept warping dts and chargelots into my base from three sides while expanding. Warp prisms are sufficiently powerful. Protoss just have to figure out a way to get the dark shrine and robo out faster while still being safe. --- Terran Macro Whine Inc --- I've never heard any player bitch about how shit terran mech is and how underpowered terran is at the limit. I've lost ridiculous TvPs against mass colossus, archon, chargelot, immortal, ht even with suiciding every last scv for higher army limit and mules. It's too hard to get EMPs off against competent protoss players, and they will always land storms as soon as the colossi vaporize ghosts. The fact that archons are the most effective unit per supply cost doesn't help either. All terran players play with what basically is a loss timer. When game reaches a certain point, terran has lost. It's more evident against zerg than it is against protoss. Terran loses against zerg as soon as a hive tech finishes. Terran loses against protoss when they get a death ball of sufficient power. This timer pressures terrans into ending the game as quickly as possible, and that's partly why terrans love to abuse the early game. If blizzard wants less cheese/allins in sc2, terran needs a viable late game. ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/KwarK/391.jpg) Have a cool picture to help keep cool. | ||
|
Stiluz
Norway688 Posts
I just got rolled by VTwhiplash when he kept warping dts and chargelots into my base from three sides while expanding. Warp prisms are sufficiently powerful. Protoss just have to figure out a way to get the dark shrine and robo out faster while still being safe. --- Terran Macro Whine Inc --- I've never heard any player bitch about how shit terran mech is and how underpowered terran is at the limit. I've lost ridiculous TvPs against mass colossus, archon, chargelot, immortal, ht even with suiciding every last scv for higher army limit and mules. It's too hard to get EMPs off against competent protoss players, and they will always land storms as soon as the colossi vaporize ghosts. The fact that archons are the most effective unit per supply cost doesn't help either. All terran players play with what basically is a loss timer. When game reaches a certain point, terran has lost. It's more evident against zerg than it is against protoss. Terran loses against zerg as soon as a hive tech finishes. Terran loses against protoss when they get a death ball of sufficient power. This timer pressures terrans into ending the game as quickly as possible, and that's partly why terrans love to abuse the early game. If blizzard wants less cheese/allins in sc2, terran needs a viable late game. Have a cool picture to help keep cool. I mentioned this earlier, but Idra stated very recently that during his ZvT practice sessions with Demuslim, Terran would mech up, and go mass Ghosts (like 15-20ish). If the Terran splits the map, the Zerg army did not have a chance, even the feared BL/Infestor combo (mass EMP + mass snipe, + mech support). Before calling Terran mech shit, I would let the metagame develop a bit more to the point where the mech/ghost strategy is used, it certainly sounds viable. (And not just in theorycraft, but from actual top-level practice sessions) Obviously I'm not a GM or anything, but you can at least take Idra's word for it (inside the game, recent episodes). | ||
|
Kaz_Coaching
United States83 Posts
Zerg just doesn't have a heavy hitter in the mid tier levels like other races do. Sadly the infestor has been buffed to fill this role, but I really think it's the wrong role for infestors and why so many people are complaining about infestors. I think hydras need either a movement speed buff off creep, or an HP increase. Infestor damage can be toned down in return. Zerg actually has fewer combat units then other races. Out of all the zerg units, the hyrda just doesn't flow like other units do. It's an SC1 rehashed unit that is in need of work. The Roach and Infestor have stepped up to try and fill it's role, but there's still a gap that is felt by zerg in the mid game. I also don't understand archon bonus damage against biological. Let's give a unit a damage buff against a whole race! | ||
|
bole
Serbia164 Posts
how to explein... : exemplein if blizz nerf infestors : they can nerf energy (remuve energy upgread) they can do that netural parasit cant controll masive unites... in first exemple (remuving energy upg) i think terran mass marines will agen be so strong vs zerg... in secund (remuving netural parasit to not controll massive unites) i think colloss deth ball will agean be Op and zerg couldn do nothing about it... i think maby nerfing marines colloss and infestors would do the job but agean i am not sure.. but blizzard buff infestors this much in first place to conter mass marines easy also to be good solution for deth ball....but problem is how much they need to nerf em to be still good but not this much as now... thx for reading sry for my eng  | ||
|
Tppz!
Germany1449 Posts
On August 18 2011 20:42 bole wrote: i think problem now with game balance is things that hurt game from past to now... how to explein... : exemplein if blizz nerf infestors : they can nerf energy (remuve energy upgread) they can do that netural parasit cant controll masive unites... in first exemple (remuving energy upg) i think terran mass marines will agen be so strong vs zerg... in secund (remuving netural parasit to not controll massive unites) i think colloss deth ball will agean be Op and zerg couldn do nothing about it... i think maby nerfing marines colloss and infestors would do the job but agean i am not sure.. but blizzard buff infestors this much in first place to conter mass marines easy also to be good solution for deth ball....but problem is how much they need to nerf em to be still good but not this much as now... thx for reading sry for my eng I really dont think infestors need a nerf right now. Terran has evolved some strategies to play against it. And even though Fungal Growth is a big design flaw we cant expect blizzard to change the ability - we need to hope that they replace the infestor or just replace fungal growth. Nerfing Marines isnt a way to go since it affects every matchup and would make the early game of terran a lot harder/cheese against terran too powerful. edit: no ned to say sorry. noone should have a problem with understandingg what u said. :> | ||
|
Joseph123
Bulgaria1144 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + After watching Huk vs Moonglade I'm seriously starting to feel desperate about PvZ. I have faced the fact that i can win PvT only if I'm 2 times better than my opponent and 5 times better if he goes for 1/1/1. But I don't get how a mediocre zerg can just mass infestor + roach and beat one of the best protoss players in the world.. Huk had more bases than moonglade on shattered temple and made every unit in the protoss arsenal and still lost. And the thing is that i don't see him doing anything wrong this game. He dominated Moonglade after being behind from the start and just played overall better and then Moonglade just kept streaming roaches after every battle and he just won. And no I don't think he should've made void rays. Also I don't see how he would be able to feedback the infestors who were so behind when templars are sooooooo slow and moonglade can just move his infestors back and kill the templars with roaches. What I'm thinking is maybe phoenixes vs roach infestor would be nice but pros just don't do that/do it rarely so I'm not sure if this would be good in that game. Possible solutions.. Obviously If they nerf the infestor only this won't be good. I feel the balance between hydras and roaches should be changed a bit (maybe buff hydras a bit and nerf roaches). I also feel that the balance between broodlords and ultras should be changed so ultras can be used more often and broodlords aren't the only lategame choice for zerg.. Also baneling drops are so good and I think Tyler said that overlord hp should be lowered so they can be dealt with. | ||
|
Fig
United States1324 Posts
 Seriously though, right now a tier 1.5 caster (ghost) and tier 2 caster (infestor) can both cloak, and move faster than a HT, which is the only one of the three that has to research its premier spell, and doesn't have an energy upgrade. That is a lot of disadvantages for a unit that is at the end of a very long tech route. Now you should know that I am a protoss player, but I find it really boring that ghost abilities are longer range than those of the other casters. It makes TvP late game battles between equally skilled players a boring game of "whether the terran can pay attention to their army." If they do, they will never be hit by storms or feedbacks, since EMP is longer range, and has higher radius than storm. (2 vs 1.5) Why not make the ranges fair for both players? It doesn't make sense that protoss should have no way to get a spell off if the terran pays attention. Plus with the ghost costing 100 gas, the terran will be able to have just as many ghosts as the toss has HTs, so even when the toss spreads out their units, EMPing single templar is a good trade, since the ghost loses 75 energy while the templar loses 100. Now the infestor has the same range as a HT, which is great. The problem I have with infestors is that they are a bit too versatile, again making the game less interesting. This unit can: deal with groups of weak units by itself via fungal deal with small groups of beefier units via fungal + ling/roach surround deal with single threats/massive units via neural parasite and even do some harassing with infested terrans, or even fungal if you feel like popping out of the ground for a few secs. Having the capability to deal with almost anything on a single unit is bad game design and encourages linear play. Now before you say that zerg would be useless without infestors, let me tell you that I kind of agree. I'm not proposing taking them out of the game. I would much rather see one of it's abilities moved to a different unit, to promote more diverse unit compositions. For example, how about neural parasite on the corruptor? Just an idea. | ||
|
Rob28
Canada705 Posts
On August 18 2011 19:57 Gorb1 wrote: I also don't understand archon bonus damage against biological. Let's give a unit a damage buff against a whole race! Except: 1) Archons, though rising in popularity since their last buff, are still rare and expensive, and 2) You could say the exact same about EMP affecting shields, which wasn't a buff but an actual default ability I'd say leave as is, but give Z some unit with a huge benefit to attacking terran units (I dunno, something that affects only ranged units? Oh wait, that's basically fungal, except it affects P as effectively as T...) | ||
|
galivet
288 Posts
TvP is already totally different from TvZ and both are totally different from TvT. Why not go one step further and balance the attributes differently for each matchup? For a random example, blizzard could increase seige tank damage in TvP and decrease it in TvZ. Blizzard obviously has the ability to do this because the single-player units in many cases have different attributes from those same units in multi-player. The advantage is that blizzard wouldn't have to worry about a change that should only effect one matchup from having some unintended consequence in another matchup. Look at the warp gate research time nerf: It was meant to add more variety to PvP, but instead PvP is still mostly 4 gate and protoss is weaker against early all-ins from zerg! Now imagine if blizzard would simply increase the warp gate research time in PvP only, while leaving it at its original duration in ZvP and TvP. Everyone wins. All you can really say against it is "Well but then our units and upgrades and stuff work differently in different matchups!" So what? You already play differently in the different matchups anyway. It's not like you have one build that you use in both TvZ and TvT and it really messes you up to not be able to do it exactly the same in both cases. | ||
| ||
