|
On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design".
The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails.
The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter.
The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game.
|
I saw MC lift widow mines 1 sec before the missile shot, try it by yourself.. it will be a fail
|
On March 27 2013 18:22 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 17:47 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 16:33 baldgye wrote:
I think a bigger problem with phonex vs Zerg is that you never know how many to make, scouting Zerg tech with your first 3-5 can be dangerous as if u loose one of two it's so much wasted money early on... But if you stop making them and then they go muta your kinda in trouble and if you make too many and they go hydra your kinda in trouble.
Personally I'd be happy with mutas and phonex going back to WoL spec as now the stargate gives you units that are worth while it's not so much a huge investment as it was in WoL You have the same problem with many units. It's just how an RTS works out. But yeah, I agree that they should not have buffed mutas/phoenix. Or only buffed pheonix and differently, like to make them slightly better against ground. There really was no need for any mutalisk buff and we get the bill for it now in the form of terrible ZvZ. I disagree. Mutas were solid units, but once you get Storms/Fungals/Thors, they really lose their effectiveness. Two good Storms, and your flock of 20 Mutas is on red, two "lucky" Thor shots, and they are barely alive, and you have to sacrifice them so you can make other units, because they take up to 40 supply, or you can wait 5+ minutes for them to heal... Their regeneration supports micro even more, so you can back off with injured Mutas and have them 1-2 minutes later on full HP again so they can harass again. That is actually the reason why players in WoL didn't stay on Mutas for too much or skipped them completely. Once you have counters to them, they are pretty worthless because they already aren't that good for engaging armies, and whenever you tried to harass you would take much more damage with them than you dealt to the opponent.
Which is good, because it means you cannot contain an opponent forever by massing mutalisks. Harassment is interesting if it hits hard when it comes into play and fades out when an opponent stabilizes and then hits hard again, when either the opponent loses the stability (like losing a lot of marines in a battle in TvZ) or has to spread thin to compete with the economy of the mapcontrolling "mobile player".
In ZvZ and PvZ mutas hit hard and keep hitting hard which completly cripples the opponent, so he only has one chance to either win in a baserace or win by destroying the mutas and the game becomes predictable.
I guess it is OK in TvZ, because Thor/Marine/Widow Mine "overcounter" mutalisks in straight battles and allow the Terran to spread out thinly to defend or launch an attack whenever he has some army. However in PvZ and ZvZ you don't have such ground to air units. (Maybe apart from archons and stormtemplar, and those are expensive as shit and need a long time to tech to)
It's not about buffing infestors or hydras or stalkers or templar... The problem is that 30mutalisks popping up somewhere when you are on ground units would require you to have a whole army in place.
About twoplaystyle ZvZ: WoL balance was very close to that with ling/infestor/ultra as close to viable second option and mutalisk midgame as one of the strongest choices. With the new fungal (very good for lings/blings/mutas) the viper (good vs roach/hydra), swarmhosts (maybe a safe hive transition unit to hold out until you have ultras) I could see roach/hydra(/infestor and/or viper) vs ling/bling/muta/ultra (host) being very interesting. If the antiair of roach/hydra would be actually enough to stabilize against mutalisk openings.
I just believe that mass mutalisks (so like 20+) is not really an interesting playstyle most of the time. It's just one player turtling to get a mutaraping army as fast as possible, while the mutaplayer tries to anticipate the exact enemy timing.
|
On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game.
Every toss player knows that the Phoenix in itself isn't particularly hard to use, its just that it requires a lot of babysitting and thus very good mechanics are needed in order to macro decently (especially with warpgates). Joe Woodleague loves Phoenixes as everyone else, but hates the fact that its minerals go over 9000 while harassing.
Of course its ability being single target means that it's only useful for harassment and small engagements, but that's it. Don't know how it could be "bad design" for this sole reason, if anything the problem is always the deathball game. In fact the phoenix is a staple unit in PvP where each unit counts and the basic AA (stalkers) is terrible.
|
On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game.
Joe Woodleague won't be able to use medivac boosters either in an efficiant way. If Joe Woodleague isn't able to use a unit to its full capabilities then he should accept that and use other units instead or use these units just in a way he is capable to.
|
On March 27 2013 19:47 nanaoei wrote:
muta vs muta was for a long time staple for SC1 ZvZ pro-games. it is not simply a matchup with mutalisks but with the heavily mobile zerglings as well...
it was a battle of low economy through zerglings and seemingly obscure(to the viewers) timings with them, or midgame mutalisk play that may or may not have lead into an extremely long ZvZ involving all of the zerg's unit arsenal.
(see: yellOw vs jaedong for a good example)
--that's to say most of this matchup we saw in pro-games came down to 2-base vs 2-base and the denial of the third base.
This changed ever so slightly over time; i'm guessing it was through attempts by the progamers to make the matchup more interesting. If anything, i see the exact same pattern of strategy in the muta play of WoL and HotS, except you have more options--arguably in the ways you can defend yourself early on, and you have less options if you're unable to establish your third base later in the game.
You cannot compare it to SC1 ZvZ for 1 simple reason, the lack of scourge. Those units either chased away the muta's or straight up destroyed them. in SC2 you got no such unit and this gives muta's simply free reign. Now it is simply who makes the most muta's wins (as long he doesn't fly them in spore crawlers ofc)
|
I don't know about anyone else but in FFA I have seen tempest become incredibly strong. Every single FFA I have played has resulted in Airtoss vs Airtoss and generally the one with more tempest / upgrades / storm completely stomps all
Just wondering what anyone else thinks of tempests and FFAs?
|
On March 27 2013 20:48 UnholyRai wrote:
I don't know about anyone else but in FFA I have seen tempest become incredibly strong. Every single FFA I have played has resulted in Airtoss vs Airtoss and generally the one with more tempest / upgrades / storm completely stomps all
Just wondering what anyone else thinks of tempests and FFAs?
If someone maxes out on tempest, why not just max out on VRs and win?
|
On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game.
Wait, I am talking about pro matches, and you are talking about... BGH FFA games? The hell...?
Yes, in BGH games, mass Guardians and mass Devourers were actually viable, something you won't see in a pro game.
About Phoenixes, yes it can use support spells in bigger battles, you just need to use it the right way, avoiding enemy units and coming from behind, and pick off Casters/Siege Tanks/Swarm Hosts, but that takes skill, and that is why you won't see it often. Also, I know that zero range was exaggeration, hence the " ", but it has 5 range, which is still pretty solid.
|
On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game.
Wait, I am talking about pro matches, and you are talking about... BGH FFA games? The hell...?
Yes, in BGH games, mass Guardians and mass Devourers were actually viable, something you won't see in a pro game.
About Phoenixes, yes it can use support spells in bigger battles, you just need to use it the right way, avoiding enemy units and coming from behind, and pick off Casters/Siege Tanks/Swarm Hosts, but that takes skill, and that is why you won't see it often. Also, I know that zero range was exaggeration, hence the " ", but it has 5 range, which is still pretty solid.
About Corsairs, they are good Overlord hunters, as much as Phoenixes are I guess. Their ability can be used as how you described, but players realized that it is double edged spell because it also works on your own units, and that you can micro out of it, while you also have AtA only unit, which won't have use in PvT, so instead of them, they are going for Arbiters which provides much better support with its abilities. So, again, Corsairs have the potential, but aren't used much, while Phoenixes are used, and have even better potential.
On March 27 2013 20:26 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 18:22 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 17:47 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 16:33 baldgye wrote:
I think a bigger problem with phonex vs Zerg is that you never know how many to make, scouting Zerg tech with your first 3-5 can be dangerous as if u loose one of two it's so much wasted money early on... But if you stop making them and then they go muta your kinda in trouble and if you make too many and they go hydra your kinda in trouble.
Personally I'd be happy with mutas and phonex going back to WoL spec as now the stargate gives you units that are worth while it's not so much a huge investment as it was in WoL You have the same problem with many units. It's just how an RTS works out. But yeah, I agree that they should not have buffed mutas/phoenix. Or only buffed pheonix and differently, like to make them slightly better against ground. There really was no need for any mutalisk buff and we get the bill for it now in the form of terrible ZvZ. I disagree. Mutas were solid units, but once you get Storms/Fungals/Thors, they really lose their effectiveness. Two good Storms, and your flock of 20 Mutas is on red, two "lucky" Thor shots, and they are barely alive, and you have to sacrifice them so you can make other units, because they take up to 40 supply, or you can wait 5+ minutes for them to heal... Their regeneration supports micro even more, so you can back off with injured Mutas and have them 1-2 minutes later on full HP again so they can harass again. That is actually the reason why players in WoL didn't stay on Mutas for too much or skipped them completely. Once you have counters to them, they are pretty worthless because they already aren't that good for engaging armies, and whenever you tried to harass you would take much more damage with them than you dealt to the opponent. Which is good, because it means you cannot contain an opponent forever by massing mutalisks. Harassment is interesting if it hits hard when it comes into play and fades out when an opponent stabilizes and then hits hard again, when either the opponent loses the stability (like losing a lot of marines in a battle in TvZ) or has to spread thin to compete with the economy of the mapcontrolling "mobile player". In ZvZ and PvZ mutas hit hard and keep hitting hard which completly cripples the opponent, so he only has one chance to either win in a baserace or win by destroying the mutas and the game becomes predictable. I guess it is OK in TvZ, because Thor/Marine/Widow Mine "overcounter" mutalisks in straight battles and allow the Terran to spread out thinly to defend or launch an attack whenever he has some army. However in PvZ and ZvZ you don't have such ground to air units. (Maybe apart from archons and stormtemplar, and those are expensive as shit and need a long time to tech to) It's not about buffing infestors or hydras or stalkers or templar... The problem is that 30mutalisks popping up somewhere when you are on ground units would require you to have a whole army in place. About twoplaystyle ZvZ: WoL balance was very close to that with ling/infestor/ultra as close to viable second option and mutalisk midgame as one of the strongest choices. With the new fungal (very good for lings/blings/mutas) the viper (good vs roach/hydra), swarmhosts (maybe a safe hive transition unit to hold out until you have ultras) I could see roach/hydra(/infestor and/or viper) vs ling/bling/muta/ultra (host) being very interesting. If the antiair of roach/hydra would be actually enough to stabilize against mutalisk openings. I just believe that mass mutalisks (so like 20+) is not really an interesting playstyle most of the time. It's just one player turtling to get a mutaraping army as fast as possible, while the mutaplayer tries to anticipate the exact enemy timing.
I agree to some extent, but problem was that those Muta counters came way too fast in my opinion, hence the reason why Zerg players in WoL don't stay on the Lair, but rushes Hive, even when opening Mutalisks.
But now, Infestor is nerfed, and is not go-to unit anymore(thank you Blizzard!), and Mutas are buffed, but at the same time, Protoss and Terran got more than enough changes to be able to deal with Mutas. Widow Mines/Photon Overcharge/Spore Crawler buff are all things that are great for deflecting Mutas, while you still have some other things that helps you to still be aggressive even with the Mutas on the map, such as Medivac and Phoenix buffs. So in my opinion, it just helps with the aggression without a need for so much turtling. I still didn't see new Spores being utilized yet against Mutas. People just refuse to build them, and they are insane against Mutas now.
I am not necessarily right, that is just my way of thinking, but you have to admit that every match-up in HotS is a lot more active than it was before.
|
On March 27 2013 20:34 TeeTS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game. Joe Woodleague won't be able to use medivac boosters either in an efficiant way. If Joe Woodleague isn't able to use a unit to its full capabilities then he should accept that and use other units instead or use these units just in a way he is capable to.
The opponent of Joe Woodleague wont be able to handle those 4+ Medivacs which suddenly appear inside his base. Thus this boost is a rather bad design. Using them is rather easy for the drop capability because you can plan that with enough time; it is "difficult to use" only in precise micro actions during a battle.
On March 27 2013 20:33 Big G wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game. Every toss player knows that the Phoenix in itself isn't particularly hard to use, its just that it requires a lot of babysitting and thus very good mechanics are needed in order to macro decently (especially with warpgates). Joe Woodleague loves Phoenixes as everyone else, but hates the fact that its minerals go over 9000 while harassing. Of course its ability being single target means that it's only useful for harassment and small engagements, but that's it. Don't know how it could be "bad design" for this sole reason, if anything the problem is always the deathball game. In fact the phoenix is a staple unit in PvP where each unit counts and the basic AA (stalkers) is terrible.
It is a combination of SHORT RANGE, SINGLE TARGET and the fact that you cant target it well "in the heat of a typical SC2 mass battle" which makes the ability bad ... or rather worse than the Corsair one.
On March 27 2013 21:39 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game. Wait, I am talking about pro matches, and you are talking about... BGH FFA games? The hell...? Yes, in BGH games, mass Guardians and mass Devourers were actually viable, something you won't see in a pro game. About Phoenixes, yes it can use support spells in bigger battles, you just need to use it the right way, avoiding enemy units and coming from behind, and pick off Casters/Siege Tanks/Swarm Hosts, but that takes skill, and that is why you won't see it often. Also, I know that zero range was exaggeration, hence the " ", but it has 5 range, which is still pretty solid.
Game design is not limited to progamers and it is the abundance of "hard for casuals to use or face units" which makes SC2 design rather terrible. They did design the game first and foremost as an eSport and that is a bad choice, because the campaign shows that they do have neat ideas for their units which add TONS of fun and alternatives to the game. They cant implement it because of their general design decisions of making a game of MASS BATTLES which are too complicated to control for weaker players who cant really multitask that well. Such an abundance of variety would actually be impossible to balance with the current game design focused on massive deathball battles.
Phoenixes dont really have 5 range, because they have to STAND STILL during the effect and thus are easy to target. If they could cast their spell and then initiate the "get the hell out of there" maneuver it would not leave them totally vulnerable for a few seconds.
In any case the "terribly designed units" which I listed are bad at all levels of play because of their limitations. Being unable to hit air is a great feature for supposedly powerful and cornerstone units like the Siege Tank, the Zergling or the Zealot, but having two ranged units in the Zerg arsenal and one of them cant hit air but is as beefy as is necessary really shows how bad it is. There are far too many flyers with limited arcs of fire or too complicated mechanics ...
Phoenixes are only used because there are no Arbiters and not because they are actually "awesome".
|
Phoenixes are only used because there are no Arbiters and not because they are actually "awesome".
What the hell man!?
That didn't make any sense at all... Arbiters are tier 3 flying support units that don't have anything to do with Phoenixes, if you wanted to say you use Phoenixes for their ability later in the game because there are no Arbiters, well, no, you are using those Phoenixes because you have them from the mid game, not because you want them in the late game.
If you made a mistake and wanted to say Corsairs instead of Arbiters, well you are wrong there too, because Corsairs can't harass at all except for Overlord hunting. They can't control the map, can't snipe units, can't kill workers, they can't do any of that, and that is the whole reason Protoss players open Phoenixes at all. Corsairs would be unit to use just as a counter to Mutalisks or something like that, nobody won't use Corsairs even against Zerg players because they have Queens and with Corsairs you can't kill Queens like you can with Phoenixes and just continue with harassment.
|
On March 27 2013 22:04 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 20:26 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 18:22 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 17:47 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 16:33 baldgye wrote:
I think a bigger problem with phonex vs Zerg is that you never know how many to make, scouting Zerg tech with your first 3-5 can be dangerous as if u loose one of two it's so much wasted money early on... But if you stop making them and then they go muta your kinda in trouble and if you make too many and they go hydra your kinda in trouble.
Personally I'd be happy with mutas and phonex going back to WoL spec as now the stargate gives you units that are worth while it's not so much a huge investment as it was in WoL You have the same problem with many units. It's just how an RTS works out. But yeah, I agree that they should not have buffed mutas/phoenix. Or only buffed pheonix and differently, like to make them slightly better against ground. There really was no need for any mutalisk buff and we get the bill for it now in the form of terrible ZvZ. I disagree. Mutas were solid units, but once you get Storms/Fungals/Thors, they really lose their effectiveness. Two good Storms, and your flock of 20 Mutas is on red, two "lucky" Thor shots, and they are barely alive, and you have to sacrifice them so you can make other units, because they take up to 40 supply, or you can wait 5+ minutes for them to heal... Their regeneration supports micro even more, so you can back off with injured Mutas and have them 1-2 minutes later on full HP again so they can harass again. That is actually the reason why players in WoL didn't stay on Mutas for too much or skipped them completely. Once you have counters to them, they are pretty worthless because they already aren't that good for engaging armies, and whenever you tried to harass you would take much more damage with them than you dealt to the opponent. Which is good, because it means you cannot contain an opponent forever by massing mutalisks. Harassment is interesting if it hits hard when it comes into play and fades out when an opponent stabilizes and then hits hard again, when either the opponent loses the stability (like losing a lot of marines in a battle in TvZ) or has to spread thin to compete with the economy of the mapcontrolling "mobile player". In ZvZ and PvZ mutas hit hard and keep hitting hard which completly cripples the opponent, so he only has one chance to either win in a baserace or win by destroying the mutas and the game becomes predictable. I guess it is OK in TvZ, because Thor/Marine/Widow Mine "overcounter" mutalisks in straight battles and allow the Terran to spread out thinly to defend or launch an attack whenever he has some army. However in PvZ and ZvZ you don't have such ground to air units. (Maybe apart from archons and stormtemplar, and those are expensive as shit and need a long time to tech to) It's not about buffing infestors or hydras or stalkers or templar... The problem is that 30mutalisks popping up somewhere when you are on ground units would require you to have a whole army in place. About twoplaystyle ZvZ: WoL balance was very close to that with ling/infestor/ultra as close to viable second option and mutalisk midgame as one of the strongest choices. With the new fungal (very good for lings/blings/mutas) the viper (good vs roach/hydra), swarmhosts (maybe a safe hive transition unit to hold out until you have ultras) I could see roach/hydra(/infestor and/or viper) vs ling/bling/muta/ultra (host) being very interesting. If the antiair of roach/hydra would be actually enough to stabilize against mutalisk openings. I just believe that mass mutalisks (so like 20+) is not really an interesting playstyle most of the time. It's just one player turtling to get a mutaraping army as fast as possible, while the mutaplayer tries to anticipate the exact enemy timing. I agree to some extent, but problem was that those Muta counters came way too fast in my opinion, hence the reason why Zerg players in WoL don't stay on the Lair, but rushes Hive, even when opening Mutalisks. But now, Infestor is nerfed, and is not go-to unit anymore(thank you Blizzard!), and Mutas are buffed, but at the same time, Protoss and Terran got more than enough changes to be able to deal with Mutas. Widow Mines/Photon Overcharge/Spore Crawler buff are all things that are great for deflecting Mutas, while you still have some other things that helps you to still be aggressive even with the Mutas on the map, such as Medivac and Phoenix buffs. So in my opinion, it just helps with the aggression without a need for so much turtling. I still didn't see new Spores being utilized yet against Mutas. People just refuse to build them, and they are insane against Mutas now. I am not necessarily right, that is just my way of thinking, but you have to admit that every match-up in HotS is a lot more active than it was before.
well, I mean how long should a zerg stay on lair tech? I refuse to call 15min Hives a "rush". In WoL the average gamelength was around 15mins (not only in vZ games, so the race/tech/playstyle has little to do with it). So I don't know why I would want to play zerg if half my unit arsenal doesn't even come into play.
I mean, just think about TvZ and when Terran goes 3/3 and how you just lose against marines if you don't keep up in upgrades. You cannot get your Hive any later than 15mins when you play against double upgrade bio Terran.
Also, I believe that with Viper T3 no tech building and roach/hydra being more viable, we will see a lot more and earlier Hives anyways - to build a few vipers and get 3/3 upgrades and adrenalin glands. In WoL, Hive was equivalent to Ultras and Broodlords. In HotS it's going to be used much more just to strengthen the army you have anyways.
Whether or not the HotS matchups will stay more dynamic we will see. Right now the metagame is not stable, so it has to be expected that a lot of things seem viable (just like in WoL at the beginning). But it's going to settle at some point and then we will see how dynamic the game really is or wether vipers or widow mines just crush everything and become the new go-to units. (though I absolutly think that you are right that it will stay more dynamic)
|
On March 27 2013 22:47 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 20:34 TeeTS wrote:On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game. Joe Woodleague won't be able to use medivac boosters either in an efficiant way. If Joe Woodleague isn't able to use a unit to its full capabilities then he should accept that and use other units instead or use these units just in a way he is capable to. The opponent of Joe Woodleague wont be able to handle those 4+ Medivacs which suddenly appear inside his base. Thus this boost is a rather bad design. Using them is rather easy for the drop capability because you can plan that with enough time; it is "difficult to use" only in precise micro actions during a battle. Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 20:33 Big G wrote:On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game. Every toss player knows that the Phoenix in itself isn't particularly hard to use, its just that it requires a lot of babysitting and thus very good mechanics are needed in order to macro decently (especially with warpgates). Joe Woodleague loves Phoenixes as everyone else, but hates the fact that its minerals go over 9000 while harassing. Of course its ability being single target means that it's only useful for harassment and small engagements, but that's it. Don't know how it could be "bad design" for this sole reason, if anything the problem is always the deathball game. In fact the phoenix is a staple unit in PvP where each unit counts and the basic AA (stalkers) is terrible. It is a combination of SHORT RANGE, SINGLE TARGET and the fact that you cant target it well "in the heat of a typical SC2 mass battle" which makes the ability bad ... or rather worse than the Corsair one. Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 21:39 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 20:00 Rabiator wrote:On March 27 2013 19:32 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 19:09 Rabiator wrote:
(*) Obviously the Corsair was the predecessor of the Phoenix, but that had at least a good supportive spell for ground units which you did NOT have to cast every time and which was far easier to aim in the midst of battle than the single-target Graviton Beam. I just listed the Scout to give the example of "great air defense and still a mediocre ground attack" because the Corsair was added with the BW expansion and the Scout was all Protoss had at first. Scout was about as useless as you can get with some unit, and Corsair got upgrade for a support spell which was almost never used. Design wise, Phoenix is better than both of the units, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't make it a bad design. The phrase "bad design" is overused as hell these days. Phoenix is anti-air unit that because of Graviton Beam works as Protoss "Mutalisk" in terms of harassment, and can pick up key units in the battle, which I saw many times. It can even pick up your own units so you can save them. Saw HerO picking up Immortal that was focused down by Roaches, and picking up Infestors with full energy in the middle of the battle, so like 5-6 Infestors were non-existent in that battle. I also saw the same thing happening with the Siege Tanks, picking them up, while Protoss is engaging the army. The Phoenix is great, multi-dimensional unit, just because it is a bit more complicated unit doesn't make it a "bad design". The problem with the Phoenix is that its ability is SINGLE TARGET and if you take that in combination with the rather frail nature of the unit AND the "zero range" of the spell AND the nature of SC2 battles which have massive numbers of units which makes targeting specific units pretty much impossible, you get a rather badly designed unit which cant really use its support spell in a bigger battle. For harrassing an enemy it is great, but other than that it is more or less useless unless you already have the upper hand. It doesnt matter if PROGAMERS can do it ... it must be a useable spell for "Joe Woodleague" as well and there it clearly fails. The support spell of the Corsair is awesome to break entrenched Terran positions or support Dragoons attacking Zerg colonies and you didnt even have to endanger your "I dont shoot ground myself" unit when using the spell. The unit itself is nice as an Overlord hunter. The Phoenix / Corsair was the weakest argument for bad unit design of those listed anyways and I dont subscribe to the "Scouts are useless" propaganda. They are awesome air superiority fighters in BGH FFA matches when you get enough of them while not being totally useless against ground. Too bad BGH games dont really work in SC2 due to the awful mass production boosts which everyone gets in that game. Wait, I am talking about pro matches, and you are talking about... BGH FFA games? The hell...? Yes, in BGH games, mass Guardians and mass Devourers were actually viable, something you won't see in a pro game. About Phoenixes, yes it can use support spells in bigger battles, you just need to use it the right way, avoiding enemy units and coming from behind, and pick off Casters/Siege Tanks/Swarm Hosts, but that takes skill, and that is why you won't see it often. Also, I know that zero range was exaggeration, hence the " ", but it has 5 range, which is still pretty solid. Game design is not limited to progamers and it is the abundance of "hard for casuals to use or face units" which makes SC2 design rather terrible. They did design the game first and foremost as an eSport and that is a bad choice, because the campaign shows that they do have neat ideas for their units which add TONS of fun and alternatives to the game. They cant implement it because of their general design decisions of making a game of MASS BATTLES which are too complicated to control for weaker players who cant really multitask that well. Such an abundance of variety would actually be impossible to balance with the current game design focused on massive deathball battles. Phoenixes dont really have 5 range, because they have to STAND STILL during the effect and thus are easy to target. If they could cast their spell and then initiate the "get the hell out of there" maneuver it would not leave them totally vulnerable for a few seconds. In any case the "terribly designed units" which I listed are bad at all levels of play because of their limitations. Being unable to hit air is a great feature for supposedly powerful and cornerstone units like the Siege Tank, the Zergling or the Zealot, but having two ranged units in the Zerg arsenal and one of them cant hit air but is as beefy as is necessary really shows how bad it is. There are far too many flyers with limited arcs of fire or too complicated mechanics ... Phoenixes are only used because there are no Arbiters and not because they are actually "awesome".
Alright, let's promote John Woodleague for a sec. because we both know John has some dreams of getting better and wants to play without assuming his opponents are always going to be making completely random decisions with their units throughout the game.
Let's say John Silverleague (has a nice ring) decides to do a drop and is loading 4 medivacs full of his stuff in hopes to end the game. He is taking the ninja path from his main base where all drops naturally pass by to avoid detection... or does he? Maybe he's taking the shortest path through the map past watchtowers, maybe his opponent is snickering in his need for seat because he saw it coming by having an observer on the ready.
It does not change the fact that what John is doing is called a risk--a risk of atleast 400![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/a/a4/Minerals.gif) /400![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/8/8c/Vespene-terran.gif) and 2:30 build time for those. Is John using medivac NOS to effectively get around as fast as he can anyway? We'll never know, and it may or may not have affected the chances for his drop to get in and out successfully.. but because it is an active skill that has its abundant advantages and small disadvantages, you as a player can increase your odds as you learn to use the unit/ability to a plan.
..Design by nature, honestly.
Let me state that literally anything can be seen as a risk. You can weigh them in how you want at any level of play, but it can be as simple as moving all your chips (all of your juicy little marine army) at once, and you are constantly making the assumption and banking on the risk that there are no burrowed banelings under you. "R" or "X" as the hotkey. Any way you slice it, those two-or-more banelings are going to be worth their cost in gold as long they make the mistake of playing how anyone would normally play.
Your regular John Silverleague is not going to weigh these risks in his head as heavily as the next pro, and that is where a lot of the difference is in unit usage, and in whether or not John or your pro is going to have fun with particular units/strategies involved.
Talk to me about the use of a cannon as you start from BGH trainee to olympic icon on iccup.
Three 150mineral cannons and a pesky little probert just ruined your chances of ever contributing to a 3v3 on your favourite map, but does this work in a game that is designed for you to scout and depend on information? Yes and no.
This is your standard cheese; easier to get it started than it is to counter and deal with... except if you know it's coming or are aware it's possible. It is still a risk, and it is established in the user's mind through experience.
The very same thing goes for any unit and strategy out there as long as there is some degree of trial and error.
John has likely tried his hand at scouts in bgh... failed miserably, wanted to cry himself to sleep.
--tried phoenixes in PvP because he saw rain doing it at MLG.. technically succeeded but failed anyway because there was no transition or lasting damage resulting from it.
This is not exactly bad game design because the results will not and cannot be the same across the player spectrum.
It is the players that are reacting differently to the unit with an affinity for using the unit/strategy, is opinionated and misjudges the use for it, or anything in between.
You are given rules for a game of this nature in all forms of units, timings, and styles---something that newer players often do not grasp over their first 20 games.. yet it is not as if you're ever a stick in the mud. That is partially because every player has their limits, and ever player has preferences.
Why not explore what -you- can do as a player.. before bawling that you're stuck in a tree when everything on the ground is too hard for you to handle?
Things are not going to go your way whether you're Zerg, Terran, or Protoss no matter which way you slice it, and these things do not change easily even if you simply disagree.
Being unable to hit air with a siege tank, zergling, or zealot is not a feature of the unit, nor is it part of their "good game design" it's practically common sense.
|
On March 27 2013 10:38 Myrddraal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 06:04 Toadvine wrote:On March 27 2013 05:31 sAxiS wrote:
HOTS is a dream so far, so much closer to the positional style of BW. It's not perfect yet, but they are making positive progress. Yeah bro, nothing screams POSITIONAL like medivacs teleporting around the map with afterburners. Okay bro, fill in the blank in these two sentences for me: Faster Medivacs allow you to punish your opponent more harshly when he is out of ________. He used boosted his Medivacs to get into ________ quicker. In all seriousness Medivac boost should encourage good positional play and discourage bad positional play, with an emphasis on quick decisions since you have less time to react to them. For example, someone who sees an opponents army out of position can punish them quicker with drops, while someone who sieges outside an opponents base (in TvT) must either make efficient use of their good position (rather than just sitting their sieged forever) and make sure any units at home are in a good position to defend against drops.
Yeah, medivacs are amazing at punishing your opponent for being "out of position", aka moving out on the map with his army. It's great that Blizzard came up with such a good way of punishing someone for not turtling, it's bound to make games a lot better. And they also allow for such amazing displays of positional play as Bomber vs goswser at MLG.
In all seriousness though, this isn't so much a problem with the medivac, but with maps having so much dead space everywhere. Thus, the "positional play" generated by medivacs is completely one-sided: Even if you have units spread out to defend against drops, the Terran can just retreat into dead space, and sit there forever. The only time medivacs actually encourage positional play is when the opponent has air units as well, which is why Muta ZvT makes for the best Hots matchup. If one party has all the mobility and is basically invulnerable, then what results is not "positional play", but a dumb benny hill chase.
Honestly though, if you people want to believe afterburners, abduct, recall and other fun additions actually make the game "positional", go right ahead. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and all that.
|
On March 27 2013 23:50 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 22:04 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 20:26 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 18:22 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 17:47 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 16:33 baldgye wrote:
I think a bigger problem with phonex vs Zerg is that you never know how many to make, scouting Zerg tech with your first 3-5 can be dangerous as if u loose one of two it's so much wasted money early on... But if you stop making them and then they go muta your kinda in trouble and if you make too many and they go hydra your kinda in trouble.
Personally I'd be happy with mutas and phonex going back to WoL spec as now the stargate gives you units that are worth while it's not so much a huge investment as it was in WoL You have the same problem with many units. It's just how an RTS works out. But yeah, I agree that they should not have buffed mutas/phoenix. Or only buffed pheonix and differently, like to make them slightly better against ground. There really was no need for any mutalisk buff and we get the bill for it now in the form of terrible ZvZ. I disagree. Mutas were solid units, but once you get Storms/Fungals/Thors, they really lose their effectiveness. Two good Storms, and your flock of 20 Mutas is on red, two "lucky" Thor shots, and they are barely alive, and you have to sacrifice them so you can make other units, because they take up to 40 supply, or you can wait 5+ minutes for them to heal... Their regeneration supports micro even more, so you can back off with injured Mutas and have them 1-2 minutes later on full HP again so they can harass again. That is actually the reason why players in WoL didn't stay on Mutas for too much or skipped them completely. Once you have counters to them, they are pretty worthless because they already aren't that good for engaging armies, and whenever you tried to harass you would take much more damage with them than you dealt to the opponent. Which is good, because it means you cannot contain an opponent forever by massing mutalisks. Harassment is interesting if it hits hard when it comes into play and fades out when an opponent stabilizes and then hits hard again, when either the opponent loses the stability (like losing a lot of marines in a battle in TvZ) or has to spread thin to compete with the economy of the mapcontrolling "mobile player". In ZvZ and PvZ mutas hit hard and keep hitting hard which completly cripples the opponent, so he only has one chance to either win in a baserace or win by destroying the mutas and the game becomes predictable. I guess it is OK in TvZ, because Thor/Marine/Widow Mine "overcounter" mutalisks in straight battles and allow the Terran to spread out thinly to defend or launch an attack whenever he has some army. However in PvZ and ZvZ you don't have such ground to air units. (Maybe apart from archons and stormtemplar, and those are expensive as shit and need a long time to tech to) It's not about buffing infestors or hydras or stalkers or templar... The problem is that 30mutalisks popping up somewhere when you are on ground units would require you to have a whole army in place. About twoplaystyle ZvZ: WoL balance was very close to that with ling/infestor/ultra as close to viable second option and mutalisk midgame as one of the strongest choices. With the new fungal (very good for lings/blings/mutas) the viper (good vs roach/hydra), swarmhosts (maybe a safe hive transition unit to hold out until you have ultras) I could see roach/hydra(/infestor and/or viper) vs ling/bling/muta/ultra (host) being very interesting. If the antiair of roach/hydra would be actually enough to stabilize against mutalisk openings. I just believe that mass mutalisks (so like 20+) is not really an interesting playstyle most of the time. It's just one player turtling to get a mutaraping army as fast as possible, while the mutaplayer tries to anticipate the exact enemy timing. I agree to some extent, but problem was that those Muta counters came way too fast in my opinion, hence the reason why Zerg players in WoL don't stay on the Lair, but rushes Hive, even when opening Mutalisks. But now, Infestor is nerfed, and is not go-to unit anymore(thank you Blizzard!), and Mutas are buffed, but at the same time, Protoss and Terran got more than enough changes to be able to deal with Mutas. Widow Mines/Photon Overcharge/Spore Crawler buff are all things that are great for deflecting Mutas, while you still have some other things that helps you to still be aggressive even with the Mutas on the map, such as Medivac and Phoenix buffs. So in my opinion, it just helps with the aggression without a need for so much turtling. I still didn't see new Spores being utilized yet against Mutas. People just refuse to build them, and they are insane against Mutas now. I am not necessarily right, that is just my way of thinking, but you have to admit that every match-up in HotS is a lot more active than it was before. well, I mean how long should a zerg stay on lair tech? I refuse to call 15min Hives a "rush". In WoL the average gamelength was around 15mins (not only in vZ games, so the race/tech/playstyle has little to do with it). So I don't know why I would want to play zerg if half my unit arsenal doesn't even come into play. I mean, just think about TvZ and when Terran goes 3/3 and how you just lose against marines if you don't keep up in upgrades. You cannot get your Hive any later than 15mins when you play against double upgrade bio Terran. Also, I believe that with Viper T3 no tech building and roach/hydra being more viable, we will see a lot more and earlier Hives anyways - to build a few vipers and get 3/3 upgrades and adrenalin glands. In WoL, Hive was equivalent to Ultras and Broodlords. In HotS it's going to be used much more just to strengthen the army you have anyways.Whether or not the HotS matchups will stay more dynamic we will see. Right now the metagame is not stable, so it has to be expected that a lot of things seem viable (just like in WoL at the beginning). But it's going to settle at some point and then we will see how dynamic the game really is or wether vipers or widow mines just crush everything and become the new go-to units. (though I absolutly think that you are right that it will stay more dynamic)
Yes, bolded part is what I've meant. Something along the lines of Brood War, if I may say, you are still staying with Hatchery/Lair units, but are adding Vipers that supports them, and make them more deadly. You are not in a need for rushing Ultralisks and Brood Lords, which is great, but you will have to make them if the game lasts a bit longer.
That is the whole problem for me with Zerg in WoL, if you wanted to stay in the game, you had to go for a Brood Lords, Infestors and Ultralisks, if you don't do that, you will be in trouble. And that just doesn't feel like Zerg from Brood War for me, the thing why I liked the Zerg(and most of us who played BW) to begin with. So that is the reason why I like changes in HotS, making Zerg a lot more aggressive in the mid game, and not making Brood Lords and Ultralisks an absolute must.
|
I would have loved to see muta buff through missile turret nerf. No change in ZvP mass muta style that way, and it's not like banshees in TvT etc. kill turrets, so ZvT is pretty much the only MU that's affected by the change. To me, watching 1250mineral 1200 gas investment for 10 mutalisks doing nothing because of 1 turret in a mineral line repaired by SCVs looked odd. Well, it's too late anyways, but by buffing mutalisk directly, it did some harms. Indirect approach through turret nerf would have been my choice if I were in charge, but I'm not. Muta needed either no buff or arguably buff only in ZvT. I was sure turret nerf would be the way not to affect other match ups.
|
On March 28 2013 00:30 Ramiz1989 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 23:50 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 22:04 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 20:26 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 18:22 Ramiz1989 wrote:On March 27 2013 17:47 Big J wrote:On March 27 2013 16:33 baldgye wrote:
I think a bigger problem with phonex vs Zerg is that you never know how many to make, scouting Zerg tech with your first 3-5 can be dangerous as if u loose one of two it's so much wasted money early on... But if you stop making them and then they go muta your kinda in trouble and if you make too many and they go hydra your kinda in trouble.
Personally I'd be happy with mutas and phonex going back to WoL spec as now the stargate gives you units that are worth while it's not so much a huge investment as it was in WoL You have the same problem with many units. It's just how an RTS works out. But yeah, I agree that they should not have buffed mutas/phoenix. Or only buffed pheonix and differently, like to make them slightly better against ground. There really was no need for any mutalisk buff and we get the bill for it now in the form of terrible ZvZ. I disagree. Mutas were solid units, but once you get Storms/Fungals/Thors, they really lose their effectiveness. Two good Storms, and your flock of 20 Mutas is on red, two "lucky" Thor shots, and they are barely alive, and you have to sacrifice them so you can make other units, because they take up to 40 supply, or you can wait 5+ minutes for them to heal... Their regeneration supports micro even more, so you can back off with injured Mutas and have them 1-2 minutes later on full HP again so they can harass again. That is actually the reason why players in WoL didn't stay on Mutas for too much or skipped them completely. Once you have counters to them, they are pretty worthless because they already aren't that good for engaging armies, and whenever you tried to harass you would take much more damage with them than you dealt to the opponent. Which is good, because it means you cannot contain an opponent forever by massing mutalisks. Harassment is interesting if it hits hard when it comes into play and fades out when an opponent stabilizes and then hits hard again, when either the opponent loses the stability (like losing a lot of marines in a battle in TvZ) or has to spread thin to compete with the economy of the mapcontrolling "mobile player". In ZvZ and PvZ mutas hit hard and keep hitting hard which completly cripples the opponent, so he only has one chance to either win in a baserace or win by destroying the mutas and the game becomes predictable. I guess it is OK in TvZ, because Thor/Marine/Widow Mine "overcounter" mutalisks in straight battles and allow the Terran to spread out thinly to defend or launch an attack whenever he has some army. However in PvZ and ZvZ you don't have such ground to air units. (Maybe apart from archons and stormtemplar, and those are expensive as shit and need a long time to tech to) It's not about buffing infestors or hydras or stalkers or templar... The problem is that 30mutalisks popping up somewhere when you are on ground units would require you to have a whole army in place. About twoplaystyle ZvZ: WoL balance was very close to that with ling/infestor/ultra as close to viable second option and mutalisk midgame as one of the strongest choices. With the new fungal (very good for lings/blings/mutas) the viper (good vs roach/hydra), swarmhosts (maybe a safe hive transition unit to hold out until you have ultras) I could see roach/hydra(/infestor and/or viper) vs ling/bling/muta/ultra (host) being very interesting. If the antiair of roach/hydra would be actually enough to stabilize against mutalisk openings. I just believe that mass mutalisks (so like 20+) is not really an interesting playstyle most of the time. It's just one player turtling to get a mutaraping army as fast as possible, while the mutaplayer tries to anticipate the exact enemy timing. I agree to some extent, but problem was that those Muta counters came way too fast in my opinion, hence the reason why Zerg players in WoL don't stay on the Lair, but rushes Hive, even when opening Mutalisks. But now, Infestor is nerfed, and is not go-to unit anymore(thank you Blizzard!), and Mutas are buffed, but at the same time, Protoss and Terran got more than enough changes to be able to deal with Mutas. Widow Mines/Photon Overcharge/Spore Crawler buff are all things that are great for deflecting Mutas, while you still have some other things that helps you to still be aggressive even with the Mutas on the map, such as Medivac and Phoenix buffs. So in my opinion, it just helps with the aggression without a need for so much turtling. I still didn't see new Spores being utilized yet against Mutas. People just refuse to build them, and they are insane against Mutas now. I am not necessarily right, that is just my way of thinking, but you have to admit that every match-up in HotS is a lot more active than it was before. well, I mean how long should a zerg stay on lair tech? I refuse to call 15min Hives a "rush". In WoL the average gamelength was around 15mins (not only in vZ games, so the race/tech/playstyle has little to do with it). So I don't know why I would want to play zerg if half my unit arsenal doesn't even come into play. I mean, just think about TvZ and when Terran goes 3/3 and how you just lose against marines if you don't keep up in upgrades. You cannot get your Hive any later than 15mins when you play against double upgrade bio Terran. Also, I believe that with Viper T3 no tech building and roach/hydra being more viable, we will see a lot more and earlier Hives anyways - to build a few vipers and get 3/3 upgrades and adrenalin glands. In WoL, Hive was equivalent to Ultras and Broodlords. In HotS it's going to be used much more just to strengthen the army you have anyways.Whether or not the HotS matchups will stay more dynamic we will see. Right now the metagame is not stable, so it has to be expected that a lot of things seem viable (just like in WoL at the beginning). But it's going to settle at some point and then we will see how dynamic the game really is or wether vipers or widow mines just crush everything and become the new go-to units. (though I absolutly think that you are right that it will stay more dynamic) Yes, bolded part is what I've meant. Something along the lines of Brood War, if I may say, you are still staying with Hatchery/Lair units, but are adding Vipers that supports them, and make them more deadly. You are not in a need for rushing Ultralisks and Brood Lords, which is great, but you will have to make them if the game lasts a bit longer. That is the whole problem for me with Zerg in WoL, if you wanted to stay in the game, you had to go for a Brood Lords, Infestors and Ultralisks, if you don't do that, you will be in trouble. And that just doesn't feel like Zerg from Brood War for me, the thing why I liked the Zerg(and most of us who played BW) to begin with. So that is the reason why I like changes in HotS, making Zerg a lot more aggressive in the mid game, and not making Brood Lords and Ultralisks an absolute must.
I completly agree. But I believe this is nearly independend from mass mutalisk styles. Mass mutalisk might be a style that can provide an aggressive midgame, but I think that the other ones - roach/hydra, swarmhosts as far as they are viable, ling/bling with mutas or infestors - make for much better games than the ZvZ and ZvP mass mutalisk styles.
|
I have been thinking about defending two base Swarm Host as protoss. While I am currently having problems with this I do not think it is a balance issue. However having looked at the numbers I am concerned that if a zerg player can squeeze in +1 armour to their swarm host build it might become too hard to hold with colossus.
The reason is that with +1 colossus vs +0 locusts, the locusts die in two hits. If the locusts also had +1 armour then they would not die in two hits, unless the colossus had +2. Against a dedicated swarm host attack I think double robo is needed, therefore no twilight or +2. My reasoning is that you need 3 or 4 colossus before you run out of forcefields and you cannot really do that with one robo.
In summary, I would like to see the outcome of zergs incorporating +1 armour to fast swarmhost attacks against protoss and I suspect that the life of locusts may have to be decreased from 65 to 60 for the protoss to hold it with collossi.
|
Since everyone seems to be talking about balance at "woodleague". Well, banelings are OP at that level. You need to constantly babysit your marines or they all die in an instant. Since Joe Woodleague can't handle that, we need to buff marines.
See how stupid this is? :\
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
