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On March 17 2013 16:03 Wingblade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2013 15:45 Reborn8u wrote:A few points to bring up. First of all it's too early to cry imba about anything. A lot of people are crying about med evac boost, the fact is that the players that get map vision to spot drops, have units pre-positioned, make static defenses, and react quickly are shutting them down and winning. Watch Rain vs Jjakji or Life vs Polt at MLG. They did these things, they shut down drops. Rain used pylons and obs to spot drops, Life used ov's and creep spread, rain made a cannon at each base, Life made a spore and spine at each base (mostly), Rain kept 2 or 3 stalkers in his main (+warp ins), Life had some lings and a bane or 2 in his main. They both defended the drops easily using these simple techniques. Once rain got out templar to feed back he was able to move out, once Life got mutas he moved out. There is nothing wrong with the medevac boost. If you do these basic things you will be fine. If you don't you will suffer. Changing the units has nothing to do with it. Not only were both of these players able to shut down the drops, but they were able to take almost no damage and kill enough medevacs , that once they pushed out on 3 base, they won. Games 2 and 5 of rain vs jjakji and Game 5 (and game 3 i think?) of life vs polt at MLG are great examples of this. Also take a look in the spoiler below, it is a list of the top korean players by race. The stars indicate the ones at MLG. The foreigners all got destroyed so they are largely irrelevant because they lost to better players, balance is irrelevant in that. This list has Stephano, Thorzain, and Huk on it, because they all compete in Korea, they all got eliminated, are all foreigners and represent all 3 races. So they don't really change the ratio's. + Show Spoiler +So we have 10 Terrans, 3 Zergs, and 7 protoss from that list who entered the round of 32 at MLG. The races left in the Ro8 at this point are 4 Terrans, 1 Zerg, and 3 protoss. Pretty DAMN BALANCED IMO Just keep in mind the 4 remaining terrans are spread evenly through these brackets. Every match in the Ro8 will be vs terran. So I would not be surprised to see 2 or 3 in the Ro4 or even a TvT finals. This tournament had polt, bomber, MKP, MVP, Flash, Innovation, Taeja, and Thorzain. They were spread pretty evenly through the brackets at the ro32. I wouldn't be surprised if there was 3 terrans in the ro4, if this was WOL, with that kind of terran talent spread through the brackets like this. I can honestly say, MLG is proving this game is wonderful, and pretty damn balanced at the top level. The better players, are playing better and winning. HOTS is an amazing game, if they go around nerfing everything that people can't deal with because of their own unskilled play, this game is going to suck. All the races have really strong abilities and units in hots. The players who are defending well against the new threats, and utilizing their races strengths are winning. Your logic is flawed because 7 Korean Zergs attempted to qualify through the showmatches and were all beaten. That's why there's no Zergs at MLG, they all lost in the qualifiers! Essentially, the Winter Championship played out like a 64 man tournament with the top 4 from the previous MLG getting a first round bye, and the entire first round was played online. Now I tell you that Korean Zergs went 0-7 against their Korean non-zerg counterparts in the first round of the tournament. Does that sound balanced to you?
You seem to be very conveniently forgetting that the qualifiers took place before hellbat drops were nerfed.
There's also a touchy truth that needs to be addressed, which is that during the last year or so of WoL, there were a lot of Zergs in high places that had no business being there, but were there all the same because they played Zerg. It's no coincidence that in 2012, every single up and coming foreign talent was Zerg. It's no coincidence that every tournament we saw abroad was an endless series of ZvZs. It's no coincidence that the last two GSL finals were ZvZ, and that our last three champions were all Zerg. Zerg took over the world because Zerg was imbalanced. Zergs have been winning games they didn't deserve to win against players they didn't deserve to beat for many months now, and with the expansion out, that's all gone away in an instant. Zergs have to re-learn how to harass, how to play early and midgame, and most importantly how to handle engagements without fungal letting them dictate everything. It's likely that Zergs will struggle for a while, and we'll see where things go.
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The first game you linked Rain had to micro his colossus, and he was being dropped at both his main and natural so he had to multitask to defend those.
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On March 17 2013 07:50 m0ck wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2013 07:40 keglu wrote:On March 17 2013 07:32 Belha wrote:
Speedvacs are op in PvT. Hoping for the faster balance patch from blizz (knowing that they usually take a loooooong time to balance obvious imbalances). That depends which side is consider inbalanced. Terran was usually nerfeed preety fast, Zerg not so much. You should check out the periods of dominance for the two races.
You should check patch frequency in these periods.
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The fun thing about this thread is:
Zerg players realising something Terran has feels "to strong". Wants an instant nerf.
Zerg players having 5-range queens, instant fungals, 3/3 Infested Terrans and GG-lords for months telling Terrans "L2P, do this and do that".
I am a Terran player myself and currently feel like the Medivac seem to strong. However, if so is the case, I would gladly be fine with a nerf on it. If Terran becomes unstopable at the highest level, of course something has to be done.
However, its quite funny how many Terran players can agree on this, when so many Zerg players were totally blind and ignorant for the time of GG-lords+Infestor-domination.
Just quite ironic on how humble people can be in the world of SC2....
Lets see how this MLG turns out and perhaps make some slightly adjusments based on it.
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On March 17 2013 15:45 Reborn8u wrote:
So we have 10 Terrans, 3 Zergs, and 7 protoss from that list who entered the round of 32 at MLG. The races left in the Ro8 at this point are 4 Terrans, 1 Zerg, and 3 protoss.
Pretty DAMN BALANCED IMO
You do realise this tournament is not invitation based right? There were qualifications running for a while. So three Z entering the tournament means that Z is too weak... So the stats you're quoting prove the exact opposite of what you think they prove. Just to take an example (that dont prove anything in itself), look at DRG vs Jjakji, with terran winning 3-0. He didnt win shit since his gsl championship and fell into code B. In wol he would never ever have taken a single map from DRG.
At some point in the ro32 i remember day9 saying that appart from thorzain, not a single terran lost a pvt or zvt set yet :D
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korean terran vs korean non terran in this tournament is 11-10, doesn't seem like imba to me, we'll see after the quarterfinals.
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On March 17 2013 18:08 Natalya wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2013 15:45 Reborn8u wrote:
So we have 10 Terrans, 3 Zergs, and 7 protoss from that list who entered the round of 32 at MLG. The races left in the Ro8 at this point are 4 Terrans, 1 Zerg, and 3 protoss.
Pretty DAMN BALANCED IMO
You do realise this tournament is not invitation based right? There were qualifications running for a while. So three Z entering the tournament means that Z is too weak... So the stats you're quoting prove the exact opposite of what you think they prove. Just to take an example (that dont prove anything in itself), look at DRG vs Jjakji, with terran winning 3-0. He didnt win shit since his gsl championship and fell into code B. In wol he would never ever have taken a single map from DRG. At some point in the ro32 i remember day9 saying that appart from thorzain, not a single terran lost a pvt or zvt set yet :D
I would still suggest give it some time. One can say for Zerg as well during the mid/late ending of WoL where it was mostly a lot of Zergs, especially foreign zergs, that were high up tourney brackets. Give it time and let it settle for awhile. Most of the Zergs I have seen haven't even used their full potential yet nor see most HOTS units.
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I think people are claiming Terran that are OP way too early. Drops seem really over powered because, in WoL, they were easier to deal with as the medivacs were slower, and the units being carried in them weren't so deadly. Because of this, players could get a way with being less prepared for drops.
Now drops contain spider mines that can cause severe damage, and the boost for higher mobility. I think players need to adjust to realize that drops from Terran are more of a threat, and getting by without seeing the drops before hand or having no static defense, isn't going to cut it anymore.
On ladder, I find a lot of people aren't prepared for drops at all; it is pretty easy to open in a 1-1-1 type fashion, drop 2 spider mines near your mineral line, and plant them, when I'm not confronted at all. In MLG, we see a lot of players getting destroyed by drops when handled incorrectly, but there are great examples of players handling drops correctly (a poster before linked some shut downs).
My suggestion is to have some form of static defense, and/or scout out drops before they reach your base. From the Terran point of view, it doesn't completely shut us down, but it does drastically cut down on the amount of time I'm going to be flying around your base looking a spot to drop.
I just don't want people crying nerf less than a week into an expansion. I don't want a repeat of WoL where every strategy gets nerfed because its seemingly overpowered, when players still haven't had time to adjust to the new and changing meta. Good drop play requires high APM and is awesome to watch, but there isn't 1 build / timing that's dominating, and there are examples out there of people shutting down drops.
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On March 17 2013 17:48 Glorfindel! wrote:
The fun thing about this thread is:
Zerg players realising something Terran has feels "to strong". Wants an instant nerf.
Zerg players having 5-range queens, instant fungals, 3/3 Infested Terrans and GG-lords for months telling Terrans "L2P, do this and do that".
I am a Terran player myself and currently feel like the Medivac seem to strong. However, if so is the case, I would gladly be fine with a nerf on it. If Terran becomes unstopable at the highest level, of course something has to be done.
However, its quite funny how many Terran players can agree on this, when so many Zerg players were totally blind and ignorant for the time of GG-lords+Infestor-domination.
Just quite ironic on how humble people can be in the world of SC2....
Lets see how this MLG turns out and perhaps make some slightly adjusments based on it.
That's because you're completely biased... to me (a Zerg player) it seems the oppposite: everyone agreed Zerg late game was too strong, even Zerg players. And now even though it's obviously not a 50/50 matchup people find excuses and ways to twist stats...
We're both wrong, our perception is skewed. Both races have the same percentage of unrepentant whiners and decent people.
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Anyway I've been thinking of what Blizzard might do. Here's some things I think could help:
-Nerf Terran defenses. That's one of the key issues IMO, the ease and safety with which Terran can get a great economy. The first thing they should do is revert the tank buff (auto siege upgrade). The second is to tweak mines (see second point). There needs to be something that keeps Terran players honest.
-Change mines: the best way to make them useful in TvP and not too strong in TvZ is to give them big single target damage, and reduce (or even remove) splash. In compensation, they should be cheaper in supply, and be able to target the unit they blow up.
-Maybe tweak spore crawlers a bit. They did it before to help in ZvZ, it may be possible to do it again to help against medivacs.
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On March 17 2013 18:08 Natalya wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2013 15:45 Reborn8u wrote:
So we have 10 Terrans, 3 Zergs, and 7 protoss from that list who entered the round of 32 at MLG. The races left in the Ro8 at this point are 4 Terrans, 1 Zerg, and 3 protoss.
Pretty DAMN BALANCED IMO
You do realise this tournament is not invitation based right? There were qualifications running for a while. So three Z entering the tournament means that Z is too weak... So the stats you're quoting prove the exact opposite of what you think they prove. Just to take an example (that dont prove anything in itself), look at DRG vs Jjakji, with terran winning 3-0. He didnt win shit since his gsl championship and fell into code B. In wol he would never ever have taken a single map from DRG. At some point in the ro32 i remember day9 saying that appart from thorzain, not a single terran lost a pvt or zvt set yet :D
To be fair, the ro64 was played before the hellbat nerf, so that fact doesn't indicate balance issues on the current patch. I am a zerg and was quite frustrated in this MLG but after thinking more rationally, what happen in ro32 was Koreans beating non-Koreans. I want to see more games from top Korean zergs in the current patch before I jump on declaring imbalance.
For me the biggest issue of HotS is that it requires from zergs a change of mindset . This takes us from being used for 3+ years of being rewarded for defensive play to trying to be aggressive. For me this is very big and more demanding than change of unit composition. Further more I am not yet convinced that the zerg arsenal in early/mid game allows for efficient offensive game. Let's see.
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On March 17 2013 18:31 Titanidis wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2013 18:08 Natalya wrote:On March 17 2013 15:45 Reborn8u wrote:
So we have 10 Terrans, 3 Zergs, and 7 protoss from that list who entered the round of 32 at MLG. The races left in the Ro8 at this point are 4 Terrans, 1 Zerg, and 3 protoss.
Pretty DAMN BALANCED IMO
You do realise this tournament is not invitation based right? There were qualifications running for a while. So three Z entering the tournament means that Z is too weak... So the stats you're quoting prove the exact opposite of what you think they prove. Just to take an example (that dont prove anything in itself), look at DRG vs Jjakji, with terran winning 3-0. He didnt win shit since his gsl championship and fell into code B. In wol he would never ever have taken a single map from DRG. At some point in the ro32 i remember day9 saying that appart from thorzain, not a single terran lost a pvt or zvt set yet :D To be fair, the ro64 was played before the hellbat nerf, so that fact doesn't indicate balance issues on the current patch. I am a zerg and was quite frustrated in this MLG but after thinking more rationally, what happen in ro32 was Koreans beating non-Koreans. I want to see more games from top Korean zergs in the current patch before I jump on declaring imbalance. For me the biggest issue of HotS is that it requires from zergs a change of mindset . This takes us from being used for 3+ years of being rewarded for defensive play to trying to be aggressive. For me this is very big and more demanding than change of unit composition. Further more I am not yet convinced that the zerg arsenal in early/mid game allows for efficient offensive game. Let's see.
Yes indeed, people forget that the 4 hellbat drops dominated the qualifiers and those were, without a doubt, broken. But as it is I have seen zergs playing really defensive even though they cant do that because they dont have the strongest army in the game anymore.
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About this "you have to be more aggressive" thing:
The problem is precisely that we actually have to be much more passive in HotS compared to WoL. Terran got so much stronger defensively.
I've always been an aggressive Zerg, I HATED broodlord centric strategies (and I'm not the only one), and trust me I ask nothing more than to be more aggressive. But it's not going to happen in the current build.
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The core problem seems to be that HotS buffed bioplay but not mech as intended.
Look at it this way:
- widow mine; no extra tech required, can be reactored. No techcommitment unit, so ideal unit to get if you want to go for bio and happen to have a factory
- hellbat; no extra tech required, can be reactored. No techcommitment unit, so ideal unit to get if you want to go for bio and happen to have a factory
- straigth up buffs to Terrans bio "support caster", the medivac
- straight up buffs for the units Terran was transitioning to from bio anyways (Raven, Thor)
basically what they did is they gave Terran a ton of new and improved tools that don't change Terran gameplay (build 99999barracks, 1factory, 1starport) while the other races got a ton of units that are tech commitments and get hardcountered by bio in straight engagements. (minus the viper)
Whether the game is balanced or not is probably too hard to evaluate from the data we have right now - they basically weren't changed strategically while Z/P need to play completly differently if they want/need to use any HotS content. (minus the ULTRAlisk and the MSC)
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On March 17 2013 18:22 MilesTeg wrote:
Anyway I've been thinking of what Blizzard might do. Here's some things I think could help:
-Nerf Terran defenses. That's one of the key issues IMO, the ease and safety with which Terran can get a great economy. The first thing they should do is revert the tank buff (auto siege upgrade). The second is to tweak mines (see second point). There needs to be something that keeps Terran players honest.
-Change mines: the best way to make them useful in TvP and not too strong in TvZ is to give them big single target damage, and reduce (or even remove) splash. In compensation, they should be cheaper in supply, and be able to target the unit they blow up.
-Maybe tweak spore crawlers a bit. They did it before to help in ZvZ, it may be possible to do it again to help against medivacs.
So basically you want to nerf Terran into oblivion? I've watched a couple of hours of MLG yesterday and the main reason P and Z are falling to T left to right is mainly because P and Z are playing WoL against a HOTS Terran, and it doesn't work. Another reason is that the Terran players are just plain better than their opponents (Innovation vs Leenock was a classic case of one player getting severly outmultitasked by the other).
If you want to see what a HOTS TvZ should look like, go watch the game Flash and Life played during the launch event. One of the best games of Starcraft 2 I have ever seen: long, action packed throughout and players hovered around 100 supply for the bigger part of the game, instead of throwing 200/200 balls at each other.
I really hope that Blizzard waits a couple of months (yes, months) before they take out the nerf bat. The thing that made me quit playing and watching 1v1 WOL was the fact that Blizzard nerfed and buffed stuff pretty randomly, resulting in the boring 20NR games during its last year. I used to follow every big tournament (Dreamhack, MLG and the likes; not GSL because of time constraints) but the past year, every XvZ game had been the same: get three bases and 6 queens, turtle up to infestor/brood lord and steamroll your opponent.
Still begs the question: why haven't I seen a single Z player build vipers yet? Blinding cloud is such a strong tool against bio. Unlike infestors, vipers fly, are relatively fast and can consume to regain energy.
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Perhaps spores could drain flying units energy when hit (kinda like arcane tower @wc3). That should improve zerg defence vs energy based harass units.
For protoss Mothershipl Core spell Photon Overcharge when used on pylon should zap (drain) energy from enemy (and friendly for proxy pylons balance reasons) units using its pylon range.
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On March 17 2013 18:43 MilesTeg wrote:
About this "you have to be more aggressive" thing:
The problem is precisely that we actually have to be much more passive in HotS compared to WoL. Terran got so much stronger defensively.
I've always been an aggressive Zerg, I HATED broodlord centric strategies (and I'm not the only one), and trust me I ask nothing more than to be more aggressive. But it's not going to happen in the current build.
Exactly, it seems kind of contradicting right now to me. If the lategame composition of zerg army is slightly worse than the other races this means that zerg have to get the edge on the early/mid game. So I am not sure if the options zerg has in HotS (new units/changes to old units and techs) can give that attacking edge versus the additions of terran and protoss in defense/harass options.
I can quickly detect two ways where my ideas can be wrong, here. Either there is a zerg late unit composition that can deal with other races late/army (my guess is to be more adaptive to the opponent's army - no more going blindly to broods/infestors/corruptors) so aggressive play in early/mid game is not mandatory for zergs to win. Or that there are indeed holes in t/p openings that can be exploited by what zerg has avalaibale in early/mid game in HotS.
So that's why I want to wait and see. Maybe after some time we will be having discussions about zergs being allinish in HotS.
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All these people who're whinning 'op this op that' and want to see everything new to be nerfed don't realize we'll end up with NR 20 again and 200/200 deathballs after nerving everything. These games were actually so much better to watch than wol games, there was action everywhere during the whole game. Also instead of nerving everything you could also buff units when necessary.
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Apart from potential imbalances of the new units/ abilities for me the main problem is the effectiveness of Terran bio. Although I can certainly admire the multitasking and micro skills of top MMM users it just should not be possible to stick with that composition the whole game. It is boring in its own way. Yes, Infestor/ Broodlord was awfull but at least they were at the end of the tech tree.
The Terran should be forced to transition out of bio. I (still) think marauders are problematic and so is the stim and healing dynamic; They make bio the Terran core army instead of support/ harass units like they should be.
The medivac boost ability puzzles me btw. I remember Blizzard thinking about changing the medivac so that it also benefits mechanical units (maybe mech inside get repaired) so did they ad the boost to make mech more mobile (if so: OMG)? Did they feel it was necessary because of the faster mutalisk? I mean, it just made bio even stronger while, I thought, the whole idea was to make mech more viable wasn't it?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Plhii1D.png)
