Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 629

On July 31 2013 23:28 scypio wrote:


Well, the question is what gas-heavy terran composition can withstand a zerg attack based on their standard tech path (roach-ling-bane or ling-bane-muta or even some hydra composition). Is there any? Can the terran sit comfortably on 6 or 8 gases making thors and ravens and then move out happily onto the map without dying horribly in the meantime?

Also, you say that in the early stage of the 4M buildup terran is not gas starved, he is just building stuff. How the hell can the T win without that stuff (production and upgrades?). Have fun stopping 5/3 ultras with 1/1 marines without stim.

On August 01 2013 00:20 NarutO wrote:
_MAKE HIVE UNITS BETTER VS 4M_

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? Seriously have you ever seen an EVEN GAME of TVZ with Zerg reaching hive? Ultras / ultra+bane or ultra+bane+infestor DO SHRED 4M TO PIECES

On July 31 2013 23:28 scypio wrote:


Well, the question is what gas-heavy terran composition can withstand a zerg attack based on their standard tech path (roach-ling-bane or ling-bane-muta or even some hydra composition). Is there any? Can the terran sit comfortably on 6 or 8 gases making thors and ravens and then move out happily onto the map without dying horribly in the meantime?

Also, you say that in the early stage of the 4M buildup terran is not gas starved, he is just building stuff. How the hell can the T win without that stuff (production and upgrades?). Have fun stopping 5/3 ultras with 1/1 marines without stim.

On July 31 2013 21:28 TheRabidDeer wrote:
LSN, what change can you make to zerg or terran that would have no effect on matchups other than ZvT?

On August 01 2013 00:24 Decendos wrote:


actually there arent many games where T doesnt have a huge lead so not that many examples available.

but yes there still are games and off creep ultra bane infestor while trading isnt an autowin for Z especially with T scouting it, going for lots of marauders and drops.

and hivetech also means BLs or vipers not only ultras and both SUCK...like in are complete trash so could use some help. never said buff ultras, its about buffing blinding cloud vs mobile armies and nerfing BL counters like tempest or new raven. BL infestor is completely bad right now: 1. much worse infestor, 2. bigger maps, 3. tempest/raven hardcounter 4. insta +2 or +3 for vikings. so yeah it could need some love.

oh and if you read my post correctly i said buff the transition and if needed support units itself from T. its just that MMMM shouldnt be viable all game long since it is boring as hell to watch all game long every game. would be much more interesting if T needed to add support units BUT also be able to do so!

On August 01 2013 00:01 scypio wrote:
One more thing on the poor gas-starved zergs:

go here and watch Polt vs Revival G1 from Shanghai
http://www.twitch.tv/m/57807

What happens:
Polt keeps Revival pinned at 3 vs 3 bases
Supply advantage is shifting from one player to the other along the way
Polt gets 3/3 for his bio ready before Revival gets 2/2
Revival has no hive and sticks to ling-bane-muta.
The game goes for over 30 minutes.
Revival wins.

What happened? For me Revival displayed the things that were discussed in this topic before. He microed well against the 4M, sniped medivacs with mutas, baited mine shots, moved in with banes to clean them up, kept good map awareness, denied the fourth with a burrowed ling, then denied it again with some runby, finally cleaned it up with mutas.

I expect top zerg players to be able to do this kind of stuff to win. In fact, this is something any top zerg can do if he opts for muta play. And I like this kind of game.

On August 01 2013 00:44 ETisME wrote:

I am saying the gas requirement for Terran is an illusion
The early gas requirement is actually lower for Terran than Zerg by a margin, you can see that from Terran being able to get a quick 3rd, double EG bay, tonnes of rax and stays on 2 or 3 gas for a while.
which is why once terran finishes the infrastruture AND the upgrades, there are often tonnes of gas left over and mineral starved.

and as for your revival vs polt game, this is exactly showing what's the problem of TvZ. Why a Zerg is constantly pinned down to equal base BUT not able to get 3/3 upgrades against a 3/3 bio?
There are so many games where Zerg is pinned on equal base and has to play from an inferior upgrade.
Zerg is constantly forced to play from a back hand because he is gas starved and not able to transition out from muta ling baneling stage and has to stick with 2/2 against a 3/3 army composition.
IF zerg is able to get 3/3 muta ling baneling against a 3/3 bio mine then it would make sense and more fun.

You can say good micro wins game but the base ground from both side is different. When one is at a 3/3 advantage, with equal level of micro the 2/2 already is behind

I enjoyed watching Terran doing the bomber style TvZ 2/2 all in against Zerg during WoL doesn't mean that game is balanced. I can also list what he did right, macro'd spot on, traded well, hit perfect timing, good tank positioning etc.

Do you expect top zerg to win against Terran with an inferior upgrades for all ZvTs?

On August 01 2013 00:58 Rabiator wrote:

The problem is that Blizzards game design is based upon Terrans "not letting Zerg get there", because Terran has no units that could really be used to counter the Zerg high tech stuff. Just imagine you have a game where the Terran isnt allowed to harrass at all, but the Zerg can attack whenever it is convenient. Such a game would end up with a HUGE Zerg economy and a lot of Broodlord / Infestor / Ultralisks plus a swarm of Zerglings/Banelings/Roaches/Hydralisks as cannon fodder. What would the Terran be building? Fungal and the free unit generators are really a huge advantage of Zerg over anything that Terran has and thus the only tactic with a chance of success is to start harrassing the Zerg economy / production capability from the get go and to keep the Zerg "down".

Zerg has the advantage in production over Terran, because they can produce anything from their stockpiled larvae while Terrans are limited by their number of production buildings for each type (bio, mech, air) and the number of tech labs he has. In addition he cant "stockpile production slots" as the Zerg can. Add this to the better high tier units and you have a huge discrepancy which only works with the "dont let them get there" strategy. Blizzard likes it this way, because it forces Terrans to harrass ... and they want action more than they want strategy in the game.

A simple change to units will not fix this deign flaw ...

On August 01 2013 01:13 GreenGringo wrote:
It's interesting that a lot of people think Protoss is the easy race.

That's funny, because I've played all three races and I've always felt it's the hard race.

Terran you can get to platinum with just spamming bio and attacking.

Zerg, just learn roach-bane timing against Terran and muta play against Protoss.

Protoss...well. You have to learn anti-drop play, counters to all kinds of different builds, as well as three complex timings, to even get to diamond.

On August 01 2013 00:59 pimsc2 wrote:


Edit : nevermind. I thought you were whining fort the zerg's lack of upgrades.

What are you saying seriously ? If the zerg is late, it's because he invested into an all in around 11:00, with pure roach banes, therefore of course he can't be upgraded at the same time. It was designated to kill Polt, as he didn't kill him, he was playing behind upgrade-wise (but not economically wise).

On July 31 2013 22:27 NarutO wrote:
Calling me low level and Terran biased makes all your effort writing long posts look dumb. I actually sugvested way back a damage nerf of single target as well as the splash from the widowmine but either an increase of splash for that matter or the chance to manually detonate them.

On August 01 2013 00:57 Vanadiel wrote:


I would talk about some "minor" change that could be tested, which wouldn't affect that much the utility of WM in the other match up :

- Make blinding cloud affect widow mine. This could changes nothing or maybe help a lot, but I believe it might be something good to regain position for the zerg, forcing the widow mine to unburrow and run away. It doesn't destroy bio mine play, it's still very strong in mid and late game, but it gives Zerg more option to counter attack then be agressive, and putting a clock on the "infinite" push.

- Buff overseer speed when you research the OV speed upgrade. They are just too slow right now, if you try to play a counter attack style Overseer always stay behind as it its slower than mutalisk, so you'll get hit by random WM in the midle of the map.

- CHange the IA priority, make it a little bit higher than it is right now. WM are really low priority, so if there is bio behind it WM will never get attacked and the fact that they are very small

I don't really believe that these change would destroy the winrate of tip top terrans or flip the table into a huge zerg domination, but rather add a little bit more dynamism and possibility to the match up and making it less random.

AN alternative option (which would affect all match up this time) would be to tweak the widow mine mechanics, not the actual damage or radius of damage, but just change the time between it's activated and the time your unit get hit.

- Reduce that time, widow mine would be harder to snipe, but easier to trigger before the engagement. WM drop would be bufffed to, as you have less time to remove your drone.
- Increase that time, WM are easier to snipe, easier to dodge but also easier to micro from the terran point of view, as you have more time to do the burrow/unburrow micro or switching target.

Both option has pros and con, but these solution can be explored.

On August 01 2013 01:28 GhostOwl wrote:


You're not low level but he was right when he called you Terran biased though. You freaking manipulated data few pages ago, by taking away only wins from 1 Zerg "outstanding player" and 2 Terran "outstanding players" to prove your point.

It doesn't even matter whether Zerg has many good players or not, you obviously get skewed data if you take away wins from 1 player of certain race and take away only wins of TWO players of another race. That's messed up.

I would be ashamed to show my face around this thread if I were you.

On August 01 2013 01:34 Big J wrote:


That is so bullshitty it's not even funny. So he only deleted the wins of the wins-lost when removing Flash/Innovation/Soulkey... so what? He also said "when you delete the wins" or something like that. That's something you do when you post in a forum and don't overthink everything that touches "science" a thousand times. You make mistakes, no big deal.

Even more, if you ever read a comment of him during 2012 you'd know he was the last guy running berserk about BL/Infestor and stuff like that. Get your head out of your own biased little ass and stop insulting other people just because their opinion differs of yours.

I did quote the WCG qualifier which you completely dismiss? Also I mentioned Flash and INnoVation as outstanding in the matchup , brining 19 of those 51 wins to Terran. If you would remove them + Soulkey it would be 32-24 which is actually quiet reasonable even though in favor of Terran.

If you keep SoulKey its 32-29. This is not about faking statistics, but making a point that those two are exceptionally good in the match up and thus make the balance look false. If you get back at sAviOr and call broodwar imbalanced, because in his prime he ruled supreme over Terran on even the worst Zerg maps... well, keep argueing then, but do it with another person because I prefer some sense in a discussion and no insults.

Well, that's not quite true. If you remove Flash/Innovation games, you also have to remove their losses which would make it 32-24. If you remove both of them and soulkey it's 31-20. If you remove the top2 terrans Flash/Innovation and the top2 zergs Soulkey/hitman it's 31-16. (at least according to the linked TLPD)

-just pointing this out

On August 01 2013 01:44 GhostOwl wrote:


This is his quote:



He removes the 2 best TvZ player's wins, and removes 1 best ZvT player's wins (wins only). Which makes the data turn into 32-24. (he claims this number is "balanced") Then afterwards, he keeps the best ZvT player's wins on there and only removes the two best TvZ player's wins so the data becomes 32-29. 32-29 is a pretty balanced number but the way he gets it is through incredible data manipulation.

And the guy who replies to him after that


Take it for what you will, but the 31-20 / 31-16 is more of a real / fair way to get the data and indeed does make his point look worse. So he chooses the method that will land him 32-29.