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On May 26 2013 08:07 Prog455 wrote:
I am a Terran myself, and my knowledge of PvZ is limited, but it seems to be that TvP atleast is a battle of hard counters, rather than a matter of skill. High Templars and Colossus will melt Bio units, but get countered hard by Vikings and Ghosts. Strong counters does not necessarily have to be a bad thing, but the problem in TvP is that Terran has to counter specific units, and not the composition as such, while Protoss units is designed to counter compositions. Colossi is good against most Terran units, but Vikings is needed solely to deal with Colossus, and are almost useless when the Colossi is dead. While Ghosts are always good against Protoss because of shields, the damage from EMP is almost nothing to well placed storms.
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
As far as Toss goes, the faction as a whole just desperately needs a redesign. It needs a foundation that obeys the fundamental rules on which RTS is built, so we can have fundamentally strong units instead of Warpgates and Lamefields. Get rid of the Colossi and general gimmickry. Solid, meaty things that make stuff go boom. Suddenly, we can get Khaydarin Amulets back, too. How does zoning the enemy army with a dropship full of Templar that threaten to blow stuff up sound to you? 'cause it sounds kickass to me. "Do you dare to come here?" instead of "Now I'm slaughtering you, oh, my spammable indestructible forever lasting terrain ran out. Guess I'm screwed."
On May 26 2013 11:30 Emzeeshady wrote:
Zerg was hilariously broken ... vs Terran
Protoss could all in Zerg everygame and still win half of them even though the Zerg knew it was coming. That was how broken that all in was. Yes, they couldn't win in a straight up game but they really didn't need to. Few people realize this but Protoss also won around the same amount of premier tournaments as Zerg in 2012. Yes, Zerg was far to good against Terran but beating Protoss was still incredibly hard.
Zerg was hilariously broken against both other factions. I'm a Zerg fan nearly as much as I'm a Tank fan, but the end of WoL was just disgusting to watch. It was a festival of Queens enabling mass drones enabling quick Infestors killing the midgame enabling quick Hives into siege pushes of doom that just won because Terran needs a ton of infrastructure if they want to try fighting vs. late game Zerg. Partly due to sheer production volumes, partly to have enough volume of everything to be able to deal with the tech switches because everything Zerg did was a threat, everything Terran did was a narrow counter against a Zerg threat.
They used to have that time when Hive happened at 17 minutes. Back then you had actual enjoyable fights happening. Zerg probably had a slight edge, but whatever. The better player won more often than not. When Hive happened at 12 minutes, not so much. It was Zerg advantage from start to finish.
ZvP lategame was a shitfest where one good Vortex could win Toss the game but was their only way to do so. A bad Vortex or a sneaky Neural could just rob them of the only way to win late and the rest was a steamroll. No wonder they did the Immortal allin. Not necessarily imbalanced from a winrate perspective, but the matchup dynamics were an atrocity.
This is why we don't balance by spreadsheet. I remember a time when T had trouble vs. both Z and P, but T players were more comfortable with TvZ. This is because it obeyed the fundamental rules of an RTS - it was hard, but you knew your mistakes, you knew why you lost. Things made sense. TvP did not. People still play horribly imbalanced games like old Street Fighter games and enjoy them a ton, because people don't experience spreadsheets, they experience games and the dynamics of the gameplay. If that is fundamentally enjoyable, exact balance matters less. In any case, it's much better than a spreadsheet-balanced matchup that's like late-WoL PvZ.
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On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value.
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On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value.
This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times.
e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening.
Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping.
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On May 26 2013 23:27 sibs wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times. e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping.
whether you like TvT or not, what he writes just means that Terran units are very well balanced against Terran units.
And it's pretty easy to see why:
Marines counter every unit that is not an extreme hardcounter to it.
Terran factory units are nearly all counters or hardcounters to marines and hardly any of them are really bad vs marauders.
for the other matchups it boils down to "we don't play marines so your hightier stuff is shit against most of our stuff; on the flip side we don't have as many hardcounters to your lowtier spam and therefore we can only play 1way or cheese".
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On May 26 2013 23:27 sibs wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times. e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping.
As much as I disliked the tank changed reducing its base damage to 35, it did cut back siege line stand offs a lot. I think endless siege lines is a pretty big exaggeration. TvT in WoL had every single unit viable, thats pretty rare for a mirror. Nerfs later stopped ghosts and reapers being seen, but it still was a pretty good match up. HotS hellbat drops are everywhere but at least its action packed.
I quite enjoy pvz, unless its mass swarmhosts in which case zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It looks so painful from the toss side.
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On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value.
The softness of counters isn't the main issue here - the issue here is the lack of threats. Terran late game tech is, Skyterran aside and especially in WoL (less familiar with HotS), just not scary. Someone has Broodlords or Ultralisks, you need an answer. They're threats. Someone has Vikings, you laugh unless you're playing heavy air. Vikings are not a threat, they're a narrow answer. Similarily with some other units, like post-nerfs Ghosts that were just pretty crappy overall. This narrowness, combined with the late-game rigidity of Terran production infrastructure, was one of the key things that made the late game of TvZ Zerg-favoured. Rigid infrastructure producing narrow counters (which due to their softness you need a lot of and are then boned by a tech switch or a misread) vs. flexible infrastructure producing little but threats.
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On May 26 2013 23:46 Emzeeshady wrote:
I am sorry but I have no clue what you guys mean by 50% doesn't equal a balanced game. For me 50% means that both players have an equal chance to win which is the epitome of balance. Yes, Protoss is forced to all in and Zerg is forced to play defensive but they will both still win about the same amount of games considering both players are equally good.
For what ever reason you are ignoring how imbalanced Protoss was in the mid game vs Zerg and just look at late game imbalance. Yes, PvZ in WOL sucked but it sucked for both races...
Yeah ... 50% win rate means the matchup seems to be balanced, BUT the game autocorrects the ladder positions to achieve that in the lower ranks and at the top the skills of the players can have some extreme peaks across the matchups so the "statistics" dont really work that well.
Balance is a term which is too dominant in peoples mindset IMO and "fun" gets totally bulldozed by it. Not everything is a good thing ... even if it brings the matchups closer to a 50/50 ratio. Hellbats are boring to watch, because they are too efficient as a drop unit OR you are too constricted in your choices to prepare for them. Additionally they are too slow as a unit (no one really uses the transformation mechanic because it takes too long) and easily avoided as an "army unit".
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Poland485 Posts
On May 26 2013 23:46 Emzeeshady wrote:
I am sorry but I have no clue what you guys mean by 50% doesn't equal a balanced game. For me 50% means that both players have an equal chance to win which is the epitome of balance. Yes, Protoss is forced to all in and Zerg is forced to play defensive but they will both still win about the same amount of games considering both players are equally good.
For what ever reason you are ignoring how imbalanced Protoss was in the mid game vs Zerg and just look at late game imbalance. Yes, PvZ in WOL sucked but it sucked for both races...
Did you miss the part where graph showed that ZvP was over 50% in 24 of 25 last months?
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On May 26 2013 23:41 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. The softness of counters isn't the main issue here - the issue here is the lack of threats. Terran late game tech is, Skyterran aside and especially in WoL (less familiar with HotS), just not scary. Someone has Broodlords or Ultralisks, you need an answer. They're threats. Someone has Vikings, you laugh unless you're playing heavy air. Vikings are not a threat, they're a narrow answer. Similarily with some other units, like post-nerfs Ghosts that were just pretty crappy overall. This narrowness, combined with the late-game rigidity of Terran production infrastructure, was one of the key things that made the late game of TvZ Zerg-favoured. Rigid infrastructure producing narrow counters (which due to their softness you need a lot of and are then boned by a tech switch or a misread) vs. flexible infrastructure producing little but threats.
I see what you say, but i think any composition that is scary because of its units, such as Broodlord/Infestor in WoL is a bad thing, because units that are flat out good regardless of who is controlling them is exactly what is wrong with Protoss. What you want Terran to have is basicly another Deathball. The biggest succes in HotS is that Skyterran is still not a viable strategy, because it is boring as hell to watch, and the skill cap is very low.
Bio/Widow Mine is not a scary composition compared to Protoss deathball, but it is next to impossible to beat when played by Flash or Innovation, because it scales far more with skill than any other composition. The only composition that is close to Bio/Widow Mine in terms of skill cap, is Muta/Ling/Bling, and maybe a few other Zerg compositions involving Roach/Hydra/Viper/Infestor. Protoss does not have anything similar at all though. Muta/Ling/Bling against Bio Terran has produces the most entertaining games, from MMA vs. DRG to Innovation vs. Soulkey. Protoss Deathball? Not so much. Skyterran is dull as fuck aswell.
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Bio/Mine are threats. You want to deal with them no matter what. Vikings are not a threat - you just lol because they can't do jack about anything and go faceroll the poor Terran. That's the difference that is bothersome. Bio/Mine / Bio/Tank vs. Muta-Ling produces great games because they are games of spacing, strategy and tactics, not composition juggling. This happens because Bio, Mines, Tanks, Lings, Blings and Mutas are all threatening units instead of jokes.
That Widow/Mine rewards good play is great. Making Terran units into threats doesn't necessarily mean giving them a deathball - it could, but threats => deathball doesn't follow, but I definitely agree that this game doesn't need more deathballs.
Sadly, the solution to deathballs is probably a mineral economy that scales beyond three bases and actual terrain effects so you don't need a deathball to hold a deathball and so that you can utilize the natural strategic-scale answer to a three-base turtler: Drown him Sauron style.
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just want to bring this up, Dimaga vs Mvp game 2:
hilariously broken/boring map balances mech out with how imba Vipers are against it 
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On May 26 2013 23:27 sibs wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times. e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping.
I've never seen a single boring TvT match.
I can go as far to say, watching Goody vs T is much more entertaining than watching any of Stephano or ret playing vs any protoss.
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On May 27 2013 01:36 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2013 01:35 saddaromma wrote:On May 26 2013 23:27 sibs wrote:On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times. e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping. I've never seen a single boring TvT match.I can go as far to say, watching Goody vs T is much more entertaining than watching any of Stephano or ret playing vs any protoss. Right, and I have never seen a PvZ where the Zerg makes roaches.
You lie, he didn't. Your manner remains lacking.
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On May 27 2013 01:36 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2013 01:35 saddaromma wrote:On May 26 2013 23:27 sibs wrote:On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times. e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping. I've never seen a single boring TvT match.I can go as far to say, watching Goody vs T is much more entertaining than watching any of Stephano or ret playing vs any protoss. Right, and I have never seen a PvZ where the Zerg makes roaches.
While i have seen boring TvT matches, it has always been because of the map. Siege lines only happens when the map allows it. On big maps like Wirlwind it is never going to happen, because the map is simply too big for Siege tanks to deal with drops.
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On May 27 2013 02:03 Prog455 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2013 01:36 Emzeeshady wrote:On May 27 2013 01:35 saddaromma wrote:On May 26 2013 23:27 sibs wrote:On May 26 2013 23:08 Prog455 wrote:On May 26 2013 22:45 Coffee Zombie wrote:
This is as much bad Terran design as it is bad Protoss design. Terran has extremely few late game threats - they just shore up their basic composition with narrow counters against the opponent's late game threats (barring super late game Skyterran, I guess). This using the most clunky lategame infrastructure in the game, which just feels wtf. The sane design for Terran would be having very upgrade-reliant units so they are viable late game threats without messing up the early game where Terran can get small amounts of anything out very quickly.
I think quite the opposite. The genius of Terran design is how versatile it is. Versalite units with soft counters rather than hard counters produces far more exciting games than the other way around. This is why TvT is by far the best mirror match up, simply because Terran has very few hard counters to their own units. Tanks are obviously very strong against Marines, but on the flip side the mobility of bio units makes it viable anyway. I think there is very few PvZ games that are even close to TvT in terms of entertainment value. This is some terran bias speaking, TvT can and is completely boring a lot of times. e.g. Endless siege lines on WoL 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Granted that on HotS tvt is usually more stupid than boring, a lot of games just come down to mass doom drops, or nonstop hellbat dropping. I've never seen a single boring TvT match.I can go as far to say, watching Goody vs T is much more entertaining than watching any of Stephano or ret playing vs any protoss. Right, and I have never seen a PvZ where the Zerg makes roaches. While i have seen boring TvT matches, it has always been because of the map. Siege lines only happens when the map allows it. On big maps like Wirlwind it is never going to happen, because the map is simply too big for Siege tanks to deal with drops.
someone hasn't seen Ryung vs Flash on Whirlwind (I hope I remember correctly). Infinity siege line! (and it was an awesome game)
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On May 27 2013 01:00 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2013 23:56 Rabiator wrote:On May 26 2013 23:46 Emzeeshady wrote:
I am sorry but I have no clue what you guys mean by 50% doesn't equal a balanced game. For me 50% means that both players have an equal chance to win which is the epitome of balance. Yes, Protoss is forced to all in and Zerg is forced to play defensive but they will both still win about the same amount of games considering both players are equally good.
For what ever reason you are ignoring how imbalanced Protoss was in the mid game vs Zerg and just look at late game imbalance. Yes, PvZ in WOL sucked but it sucked for both races... Yeah ... 50% win rate means the matchup seems to be balanced, BUT the game autocorrects the ladder positions to achieve that in the lower ranks and at the top the skills of the players can have some extreme peaks across the matchups so the "statistics" dont really work that well. Balance is a term which is too dominant in peoples mindset IMO and "fun" gets totally bulldozed by it. Not everything is a good thing ... even if it brings the matchups closer to a 50/50 ratio. Hellbats are boring to watch, because they are too efficient as a drop unit OR you are too constricted in your choices to prepare for them. Additionally they are too slow as a unit (no one really uses the transformation mechanic because it takes too long) and easily avoided as an "army unit". This is the balance discussion thread, people are going to debate about balance. For the record I do think PvZ was boring in WOL even if it was balanced. I do think Hellbats are badly designed and I really hate watching swarm hosts and mass air in PvZ.
But it wasn't balanced! One of the other posters pointed out that winrates were quite in favor of Zerg which you conveniently ignored!
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EPT
