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On August 16 2011 09:04 Spicy Pepper wrote:I wrote this out for the thread on how tough ling/infestor is for protoss nowadays, but it got locked. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=255270I guess I thought it was going to go into strategy, but I guess I'm naive like that. Anyways, why throw away a response? :p Yeah, my suggestion would be to look at some replays, and figure out when zergs are getting their infestors. Then figure out how to scout it at a certain period, while also developing a viable, sick all-in type push, once you've scouted it. This is what I'd do, but protoss is the race that I play the least by far. Other random thoughts are, to figure out a timing to snipe the infestation pit, before it finishes the energy upgrade, and follow it up with pressure for an advantage. I'd also be thinking in extremes, if they're going mass ling/infestors, then you really only need to defend against lings, until the infestors reach a critical mass, so maybe stick with an army composition that defends lings until that point, while figuring out a way to get ahead in economy. It may be possible to get your 3rd base, if you decide to do something like skip the gases at your natural for awhile, build a sim city & army for ling defense, and expand to 3rd. Obviously, this is something easier on some maps than others. Not sure, but this is how I'd be thinking to experiment.
For one, you can't get Infestors ASAP and expand, Treat an investment in Mass Infestor like an investment in Mass Muta. Depending on when Zerg chooses to devote time and reasources twoards infestors, he is NOT expanding.
Standard is currently Sentry(To expand)->Blink/Sentry->Blink/Sentry/Colossus->Blink/Sentry/Colossus/HT->Blink/Sentry/Colossus/HT/Void Ray.
If you see a lot of lings, Adding HT before Colossus is the safest bet. Lots of lings means either Muta or Infestors. HT does very well against both. While also giving you the option of DT. Both Muta and Infestor give map control, but require tech before hand. Use DT to stop the explosion of expansion after Muta/Infestor hit the field.
Colossus and Neural Parasite have the same range. Which means your Colossus can protect each other. Use your Colossus to Target the Infestors that are Controlling your Colossus. (Don't Let him Neural ALL your Colossus!)
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On August 16 2011 08:57 Joey Wheeler wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 08:40 Hawk2 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 16 2011 08:40 Joey Wheeler wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 08:35 Hawk2 wrote:
ZvP? A bit tricky, but for the most part Protoss is stronger early game, and Zerg is stronger in the late game
I would love to hear how Zerg is stronger in the late game when the Protoss actually knows how to micro and kills your Infestors. Watch Destiny play. I watch Destiny, he faces a ZeNEX Protoss. Destiny takes down 2 bases with Infested Terran and forces the Protoss to attack. Destiny has around 9 Infestors with a ling army, while the Protoss has a few Colossus and HT with archons and stalker/zealot. He neurals the Colossus and Archons and fungals the ball, a few storms goes down on his infestors and they all die quickly, getting rid of the channeling and killing off the rest of what he has.
Er, so Destiny versus a Zenex protoss (who, Puzzle? one of the best protoss in the world?), a professional Korean in a training house who dedicates his life to the game and plays at least as much as Destiny while facing much higher level opponents, shouldn't be able to take out 9 infestors, many of which have depleted their energy with infested terrans, and lings with archons, colossi, and high templar? Just because two bases just got destroyed doesn't mean the protoss wasn't building up his army value the entire time with those resources before moving out, so having dealt that economic damage is irrelevant at the time so the loss hasn't kicked in. Each templar is the cost of an infestor -50 minerals, a colossi is 200 more minerals and 50 more gas, and an archon is 150 more gas. Sounds fair to me and all are tier 3 units compared to infestor being tier 2?
Sorry that you can't beat 3+ base protoss colossi/archon/high templar with lings and infestors?
Try watching Huk v Morrow's macro games. Morrow places down dozens of spine crawlers and keeps infestors behind them to split the map into a mined out scenario. He goes mass infestor/broodlord/corruptor. Nothing Huk does can beat Morrow's army. In one game Huk goes for carriers, they just get neural parasited and the rest of his army dies to mass broodlords with infestors underneath so no blink is possible.
ZvP seems slightly zerg favored in the sense that if they are capable of holding off any aggression and droning at the proper times, while doing multipronged attacks and ling runbys, it always feels like a comeback situation for the protoss. It seems like every ZvP I see casted nowadays the casters look at the worker count and act amazed that the zerg is 70 to 45 workers. Gone are the times of a-moving roach/hydra/corruptor into blink stalker/colossi/sentry. People are also learning to do multi-pronged attacks and drops on all protoss bases and upgraded roaches are equal yet half the cost to stalkers in small numbers, which also leads to very cost effective trades for the zerg. Stalkers are only good in large numbers versus roaches because the superior range allows more stalkers to fire at once in a ball v ball scenario. And trying to blink stalker micro in three different areas at once is pretty hard. I don't think it's that imbalanced, it's just becoming much more apm intensive and defensive. Hard to say if the zerg just outclasses the protoss in that scenario or the protoss is inherently at a disadvantage. I
TvP seems pretty even in the mid and late game but 1/1/1 is annoying and hopefully something happens to take care of that.
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In ZvP right now, you get lings, then infestors, then stick with lings unless protoss creates AOE damaging units, then you switch to roaches to shield your infestors. That's pretty much all you have to do now.
As for ZvZ, I feel like roach/spine/queen is pretty good defense early on. Just disguise how much defense you have, by staggering the spines and roaches. It's getting tougher to break another zerg, and I do think it's going more into the midgame. You don't have to get infestors, if you go mutas, you have map control for awhile, where you can time out a 3rd base, while the other zerg needs to defend from your harass. Is he really going to run his roaches out into the middle of the map, when you have a flock of mutas?
If you can work that mutas harass and get up that 3rd base, it gives you a nice lead against another zerg going roach/infestor. Just build more spines and roaches, and switch to infestors yourself at that point.
Then, I like to try to tech up to ultras, which if you can get to, will roll their army composition.
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On August 16 2011 07:43 whoopingchow wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 07:30 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:23 sleepingdog wrote:
On the EMP-thing: terrans might not realize or like to admit this, but EMP is actually storm and feedback combined vs protoss. It instantly takes away a huge part of "hitpoints" and takes away the ability to cast.
Feedback has never been about "killing" stuff (except maybe medivac drops) but always about preventing the opponent from casting. EMP dominates because, furthermore, ghosts can cloak.
This means, the terran only has to cloak and hit EMP, while the toss has to have perfect observer-control to spot the ghosts, then feedback them, and THEN hopefully have some HTs with energy left for storm. Usually, on the non-pro-level, you see a clumped up terran and a clumped up toss moving against each other......then if the terran hits EMP before toss hits storms it's gg, if the toss hits a storm the terran CAN STILL EMP and it will be even (unless terran takes a shower in storms).
Protoss has to spread templars (which is what terrans always tell protoss), terran doesn't have to spread because a) storm is not "instant", you can move out of it and b) even if you take some damage you still have the medivac-heal, which means the toss better have either multiple storms or colossi to finish the job. So honestly? no, I see much more terran free-wins because toss gets all HTs EMPed than I see toss free-wins because they hit 2-3 good storms.
Overall, I think it is balanced because toss only has to a-move chargelots while terran has to kite them. Also terran has to balance against the colossi/templar composition while toss has the "first mover advantage" there. But the EMP vs storm battle is definitely more challenging/micro-demanding on the toss-part.
Bull***t bro, Feedback KILLS stuff, and Storm > EMP in terms of damages, don't even get me started.... You kill armies with storm (and no you can't dodge...), and you remove shield with EMP which is most of the time less an amount than HP... That's the exact post the OP was hoping to avoid.... a) Ghosts have a longer range, so with good enough micro, you can negate that. And with Marauders' already incredibly efficient damage vs. every armored unit, storms can punish that effectively. b) Can you imagine trying to pick out the two or three ghosts in a huge bio mass to feedback? c) You can either choose to feedback medivacs or storm the army.If you storm and let them retreat, Medivacs can heal up, run out of energy, and be un-feedbackable. If you feedback the medivacs, the now fearlessly stimmed army could roll you over. d) Terran bio ball is SO much cheaper compared to the Toss ball. I play Terran, and I have no problem with the balance of HT. Now Infestors.... :p
Oh really??
So basically ALL a terran has to do to win a TvP is :
1) Have the perfect unit mix
2) Have perfect stutter step micro
3) Have 50 population of vikings to kill 2 collossus
4) Cloaked ghost to snipe/EMP HT (always while stutterstepping, EZPZ)
5) Have low energy medivacs
Not mentionning how marauders suck against zelots.
On the protoss side :
1) A move
2) Try feedback or storm even if not needed, cause you want to be using some of your crazy apms and prevent yourself fro falling asleep.
PS: i am playing random, i know matchup from both sides.
User was temp banned for this post.
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In regards to forcefield, I wouldn't really care so much about them even being removed from the game, just so long as Protoss has a way of not dying early to something stupid like mass lings
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On August 16 2011 09:24 Xenogears wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 07:43 whoopingchow wrote:On August 16 2011 07:30 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:23 sleepingdog wrote:
On the EMP-thing: terrans might not realize or like to admit this, but EMP is actually storm and feedback combined vs protoss. It instantly takes away a huge part of "hitpoints" and takes away the ability to cast.
Feedback has never been about "killing" stuff (except maybe medivac drops) but always about preventing the opponent from casting. EMP dominates because, furthermore, ghosts can cloak.
This means, the terran only has to cloak and hit EMP, while the toss has to have perfect observer-control to spot the ghosts, then feedback them, and THEN hopefully have some HTs with energy left for storm. Usually, on the non-pro-level, you see a clumped up terran and a clumped up toss moving against each other......then if the terran hits EMP before toss hits storms it's gg, if the toss hits a storm the terran CAN STILL EMP and it will be even (unless terran takes a shower in storms).
Protoss has to spread templars (which is what terrans always tell protoss), terran doesn't have to spread because a) storm is not "instant", you can move out of it and b) even if you take some damage you still have the medivac-heal, which means the toss better have either multiple storms or colossi to finish the job. So honestly? no, I see much more terran free-wins because toss gets all HTs EMPed than I see toss free-wins because they hit 2-3 good storms.
Overall, I think it is balanced because toss only has to a-move chargelots while terran has to kite them. Also terran has to balance against the colossi/templar composition while toss has the "first mover advantage" there. But the EMP vs storm battle is definitely more challenging/micro-demanding on the toss-part.
Bull***t bro, Feedback KILLS stuff, and Storm > EMP in terms of damages, don't even get me started.... You kill armies with storm (and no you can't dodge...), and you remove shield with EMP which is most of the time less an amount than HP... That's the exact post the OP was hoping to avoid.... a) Ghosts have a longer range, so with good enough micro, you can negate that. And with Marauders' already incredibly efficient damage vs. every armored unit, storms can punish that effectively. b) Can you imagine trying to pick out the two or three ghosts in a huge bio mass to feedback? c) You can either choose to feedback medivacs or storm the army.If you storm and let them retreat, Medivacs can heal up, run out of energy, and be un-feedbackable. If you feedback the medivacs, the now fearlessly stimmed army could roll you over. d) Terran bio ball is SO much cheaper compared to the Toss ball. I play Terran, and I have no problem with the balance of HT. Now Infestors.... :p Oh really?? So basically ALL a terran has to do to win a TvP is : 1) Have the perfect unit mix 2) Have perfect stutter step micro 3) Have 50 population of vikings to kill 2 collossus 4) Cloaked ghost to snipe/EMP HT (always while stutterstepping, EZPZ) 5) Have low energy medivacs Not mentionning how marauders suck against zelots. On the protoss side :
1) A move
2) Try feedback or storm even if not needed, cause you want to be using some of your crazy apms and prevent yourself fro falling asleep.
PS: i am playing random, i know matchup from both sides.
You're ruining the thread with this sort of posting. Everyone else is being pretty reasonable.
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What is the point of people even discussing how well each side needs to play in a matchup? At the highest levels both players are going to be proficient in all the required actions, and that is where you should be trying to aim your balance changes. Incidentally terran are just flat-out better in all stages of the game at high levels at this point in the game because of powerful timing pushes and the ability of the ghost to counter everything. It remains to be seen whether the pendulum will swing towards protoss, but it certainly doesn't seem likely if you watch recent pro games.
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On August 16 2011 09:24 Xenogears wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 07:43 whoopingchow wrote:On August 16 2011 07:30 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:23 sleepingdog wrote:
On the EMP-thing: terrans might not realize or like to admit this, but EMP is actually storm and feedback combined vs protoss. It instantly takes away a huge part of "hitpoints" and takes away the ability to cast.
Feedback has never been about "killing" stuff (except maybe medivac drops) but always about preventing the opponent from casting. EMP dominates because, furthermore, ghosts can cloak.
This means, the terran only has to cloak and hit EMP, while the toss has to have perfect observer-control to spot the ghosts, then feedback them, and THEN hopefully have some HTs with energy left for storm. Usually, on the non-pro-level, you see a clumped up terran and a clumped up toss moving against each other......then if the terran hits EMP before toss hits storms it's gg, if the toss hits a storm the terran CAN STILL EMP and it will be even (unless terran takes a shower in storms).
Protoss has to spread templars (which is what terrans always tell protoss), terran doesn't have to spread because a) storm is not "instant", you can move out of it and b) even if you take some damage you still have the medivac-heal, which means the toss better have either multiple storms or colossi to finish the job. So honestly? no, I see much more terran free-wins because toss gets all HTs EMPed than I see toss free-wins because they hit 2-3 good storms.
Overall, I think it is balanced because toss only has to a-move chargelots while terran has to kite them. Also terran has to balance against the colossi/templar composition while toss has the "first mover advantage" there. But the EMP vs storm battle is definitely more challenging/micro-demanding on the toss-part.
Bull***t bro, Feedback KILLS stuff, and Storm > EMP in terms of damages, don't even get me started.... You kill armies with storm (and no you can't dodge...), and you remove shield with EMP which is most of the time less an amount than HP... That's the exact post the OP was hoping to avoid.... a) Ghosts have a longer range, so with good enough micro, you can negate that. And with Marauders' already incredibly efficient damage vs. every armored unit, storms can punish that effectively. b) Can you imagine trying to pick out the two or three ghosts in a huge bio mass to feedback? c) You can either choose to feedback medivacs or storm the army.If you storm and let them retreat, Medivacs can heal up, run out of energy, and be un-feedbackable. If you feedback the medivacs, the now fearlessly stimmed army could roll you over. d) Terran bio ball is SO much cheaper compared to the Toss ball. I play Terran, and I have no problem with the balance of HT. Now Infestors.... :p Oh really?? So basically ALL a terran has to do to win a TvP is : 1) Have the perfect unit mix 2) Have perfect stutter step micro 3) Have 50 population of vikings to kill 2 collossus 4) Cloaked ghost to snipe/EMP HT (always while stutterstepping, EZPZ) 5) Have low energy medivacs Not mentionning how marauders suck against zelots. On the protoss side : 1) A move 2) Try feedback or storm even if not needed, cause you want to be using some of your crazy apms and prevent yourself fro falling asleep. PS: i am playing random, i know matchup from both sides.
Lol if you play random why do you sound so incredibly biased?
1) Protoss has the have the perfect unit mix to take care of the terran army as well. Ghosts are already going to be in there, it's a matter of when you add vikings to the equation instead of constantly switching between ghosts and vikings. While protoss can produce high templar off just gateways you can produce just ghosts off of barracks, and protoss creates colossi out of the robo while you create your vikings out of a separate production facility as well. More terrans should try massing up orbital commands in the late game and scanning often to see the protoss unit mixture and if the robos are being used. An orbital command will pay for itself in the late game after 3 mules. If protoss is able to create high templar and colossi the terran should have enough econ to make ghosts and vikings.
2) Stutter step micro is not that difficult in the first place?
3) No? Also take into account that the protoss anti-air tends to lose to marauders/ghosts anyway so the protoss is also investing into stalkers when he would prefer to have chargelots. You can also land your vikings to deal damage and tank chargelot shots, they'll be less upgraded but in the late game they should be at least 2/2 anyway. Obviously you would prefer to have those resources sunk into more medivacs or ghosts but both of those units are already excellent in the numbers you will have.
4) EMP and snipe generally happens in the beginning of the battle, I don't think I see many terrans EMPing the entire battle? That'd be a lot of ghosts.
The protoss side casts guardian shield, feedbacks, storms (templar have to be babysat as well because they are so slow they'll trail behind) positions stalkers to attempt to intercept vikings. Terran can also often draw the chargelots far away from the slower colossi and high templar and you cant run the chargelots back to the rest of the army.
It's completely fine, don't whine about how difficult it is for you at the masters level especially if you actually are random, game balance isn't designed around that. Thorzain tends to do amazingly versus protoss with around 180 apm average, MC has around 300 and Naniwa has around 230-250. It's just as micro intensive from both sides.
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a civilized balance discussion? NOT IN THIS TOWN!
But seriously the infestor needs to be revamped both IT spam and FG spam is silly strong, i think blizz disregarded the projectile/dodge-able FG too quickly. the instant FGs with the new infestor heavy style means that anything caught in a fg is dead no matter what with little or no losses, depending on the units caught ofc. (wow that spell that shuts down peoples micro is soooo cool to watch -_-)
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I have been trying really really hard to play tvz vs a mass infestor style play. Essentially, the zerg gets a ton of spine crawlers both in his main and natural and techs hard.
2 Styles of play I've tried:
1. Drop play
2. Early Marine tank push
Both these styles fail the moment the infestor pops out. I've tried to spread my marines and all that.. even then it doesnt really work well.
Going for a quick 3rd is risky especially with a billion speedlings running around the map. I feel the infestor damage needs to be nerfed asap. It is just too much being able to do 36 damage a hit. Don't forget those infested terrans that will soak up tank damage.
I've gone for cloaked ghosts builds and while its effective, it really takes a toll on ur resources as the researches are heavy. Even then a lucky fungal just obliterates the ghosts.
I was happy with the infestor damage etc before the buff. When 2 infestors can kill a whole control group of marines, I think there has to be something done about it.
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On the protoss side :
1) A move
2) Try feedback or storm even if not needed, cause you want to be using some of your crazy apms and prevent yourself fro falling asleep.
I play protoss, and tbh this IS a problem. Half because terran micro aside from ghost vs. HT IS far more intensive, partially because protoss has literally no way of micro-ing to be more effective. It's extremely annoying to see a bio ball kiting your chargelots to their deaths and knowing you can do nothing about it. Protoss micro should be more intensive, and more rewarding IMO.
I already posted this, but since it was never responded to and applies directly to this post, here it is again:
On August 16 2011 07:48 Huntz wrote:
I think at the highest level, especially even higher than korean pros, TvP definitely favors T, simply because the onus is on them to perform well. EMP out ranges feedback/storm. You scan your army/ahead of your army/between the two armies to snipe obs, and scan ahead, cloak and go in for EMPs/snipes. I feel like terran can even the obs game with scan and take the range advantage (especially with the possible 12 range EMP for hitting the single forward HTs). Kiting is difficult, but the protoss has no way to negate it other than to hope the terran is bad at it or bad at kiting + macro. It just seems to me that after you pass the protoss drop defense/macro/FF/GS/feedback/storm skill cap, EVERYTHING past that goes to terran. Protoss needs more mobility/harass/micro options so they can compete at the highest level.
By "EVERYTHING" I mean like all excess skill/control and APM
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In PvZ, I feel that the extra mobility of the infestor vs. templar is a huge advantage. This allows the zerg to choose their battles, and when they do engage, my templars only have the time to reactively feeback a few far edge infestors and land some storms on not so good terms before dying. It is very hard for my ground armies to do anything against well controlled mass infestors.
This obviously means that the deathball play is no longer viable. Now, I absolutely have to have equal bases as well as constantly harass. (This is what lead to the mass blink stalker play recently imo)
Another thing about mass infestors is how they can make almost free dps/meat shield constantly in the form of infested terrans. Not only can zerg choose the engagement (and force me to commit with fungals), they can also force me to trade armies for infested terrans in many cases. Infested terrans do so well against gateway units that I need to use colossi/storms too.
Basically it's impossible to win unless I kill the infestor ball by luck from where I stand. I'm trying to put templars in warp prisms to flank the infestor ball but I still need some practice. If they fungal the prism, it can't unload and it's basically dead.
If the game draws out to the point where he gets brood lords with 5-6 queens I might as well just GG.
I'm far from the best player there is so I don't want to impose my word on the whole balance of things. If I can get some tips to deal with infestors as P I would be very grateful.
I think templars could be made a bit faster than they are or infested terrans could be nerfed a little bit.
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On August 16 2011 08:47 Bluerain wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 08:35 Hawk2 wrote:
vileHawk here, these are my thoughts on game balance
Balance is intended to mean that any given matchup results in an even 50% winrate. There are two ways to achieve the desired 50% winrate result one good one bad. One way, the way I feel this game is right now is to make the game very luck-oriented and to make cheese IE rush builds very strong.
Why does strong cheese contribute to a balanced winrate? Well let's say there was a fundamental issue with a matchup, let's take a random example, let's say that in ZvT the Zerg player was able to win every single game after they got their mutalisks out. Well in that case, the top Terran players will start to only use cheese strategies to try and end the game before the Zerg player can get out their mutalisks. So, while the gameplay may not be balanced, because cheese is so strong and can almost guarantee a near 50% winrate, it can skew the statistics of the matchup closer to balanced.
Now then what's the other option we can have to make this game balanced? Well, it may not be an exciting prospect, but frankly the only other option is to make Starcraft 2 much, much harder to play than it already is. The question that should be raised is, "How does the difficulty of a game contribute to its balance?"
A balanced game should never be able to be played perfectly, because it's not possible to balance 3 distinct races when each player plays perfectly. That being said, Starcraft 2 in it's current state is being played at the pro level with very very very few mistakes, thus making it very difficult to balance. Making Starcraft 2 more mechanically intensive would help with balance, because then it would be more about the skill & practice of the PLAYERS rather than the races.
Another important issue that is usually left out of game balance, is the game design. Starcraft 2, in it's current state has big game design issues. every matchup, tvz, pvz, tvp all have one thing in common. In the beginning of the game one race is alot stronger than the other, but in the late game the race weaker in the beginning becomes stronger.
TvP? this is the most obvious Terran is stronger early game, Protoss is stronger late game
ZvT? Terran is stronger early game, Zerg is stronger late game
ZvP? A bit tricky, but for the most part Protoss is stronger early game, and Zerg is stronger in the late game
Ideally though if the game were balanced, each race should be able to fight on an equal footing with one another despite at what time in the game. These are just game design issues that should be fixed, but foremost the game should be made more difficult.
On one last note with game design I have a big problem with 3 spells in Starcraft 2, one for each race.
1) Fungal
2) Force Field
3) Concussive Shells
Why these spells? They all have one thing in common, there is nothing your opponent can do to prevent them. This game should be about micro, it shouldn't be about, "oh, i got fungalled guess I lose 30 marines". "oh my stalker got hit with a concussive now i die" "oh he had good FF's gg". These are all ridiculous spells that the player on the opposing side of can't do anything about
Reasonable solutions for GAME DESIGN on these spells are as follows (note these aren't meant for balance just for game design)
1) Fungal should slow units, not stop them (should still prevent blink)
2) Force Fields should have a healthbar, somewhere around 200/200 sounds about right.
3) Concussive Shells should be a cooldown spell.
Anyway, that's what I think about this games current balance. <3 1. fungal - i agree maybe fungal should be damage + ensnare effect just so that u dont get fungaled twice in a row for 1 mistake. but realistically in high levels of play, ur gonna have to scan ahead of time for infestors and split ur army to avoid fungals. 2. force field - terrans has ghosts and long range units so force fields arent really an issue. protoss has blink/collosi so not really an issue here either. zerg has the biggest problem i think with low range units but at least they have burrow. auto burrow movement with burrow research would really help but i guess that was too OP and it was removed. the worst is constant FF of the ramp as zerg but i guess that can be stopped if played correctly. 3. concussive - be careful engaging marauders. mabye stim needs to do more damage to marauders so its harder for them to slow u if u are being careful.
You can't really say burrow is some kind of help against forcefield. because if they have observer, you may burrow your units but u still gonna lose all of em and they can keep forcefielding also since they have almost infinite forcefields if they make 6+ sentries at the start.
I think that the amount of forcefields you can place with full energy on your sentries should be 2 or 3, then you need a little precision and you can't just spam em everywhere.
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On August 16 2011 09:41 GypsyBeast wrote:
a civilized balance discussion? NOT IN THIS TOWN!
But seriously the infestor needs to be revamped both IT spam and FG spam is silly strong, i think blizz disregarded the projectile/dodge-able FG too quickly. the instant FGs with the new infestor heavy style means that anything caught in a fg is dead no matter what with little or no losses, depending on the units caught ofc. (wow that spell that shuts down peoples micro is soooo cool to watch -_-)
What was the reasoning behind scrapping the projectile idea anyway? It adds a much more interesting micro battle of blinking or stimming away from the projectile. A possible way to nerf infestors would be to lower their total energy to 100 while making fungal growth cost less, so that it only takes one emp to drain them? That might weaken feedback though.
On August 16 2011 09:45 Clog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 09:39 Heavenly wrote:On August 16 2011 09:24 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:43 whoopingchow wrote:On August 16 2011 07:30 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:23 sleepingdog wrote:
On the EMP-thing: terrans might not realize or like to admit this, but EMP is actually storm and feedback combined vs protoss. It instantly takes away a huge part of "hitpoints" and takes away the ability to cast.
Feedback has never been about "killing" stuff (except maybe medivac drops) but always about preventing the opponent from casting. EMP dominates because, furthermore, ghosts can cloak.
This means, the terran only has to cloak and hit EMP, while the toss has to have perfect observer-control to spot the ghosts, then feedback them, and THEN hopefully have some HTs with energy left for storm. Usually, on the non-pro-level, you see a clumped up terran and a clumped up toss moving against each other......then if the terran hits EMP before toss hits storms it's gg, if the toss hits a storm the terran CAN STILL EMP and it will be even (unless terran takes a shower in storms).
Protoss has to spread templars (which is what terrans always tell protoss), terran doesn't have to spread because a) storm is not "instant", you can move out of it and b) even if you take some damage you still have the medivac-heal, which means the toss better have either multiple storms or colossi to finish the job. So honestly? no, I see much more terran free-wins because toss gets all HTs EMPed than I see toss free-wins because they hit 2-3 good storms.
Overall, I think it is balanced because toss only has to a-move chargelots while terran has to kite them. Also terran has to balance against the colossi/templar composition while toss has the "first mover advantage" there. But the EMP vs storm battle is definitely more challenging/micro-demanding on the toss-part.
Bull***t bro, Feedback KILLS stuff, and Storm > EMP in terms of damages, don't even get me started.... You kill armies with storm (and no you can't dodge...), and you remove shield with EMP which is most of the time less an amount than HP... That's the exact post the OP was hoping to avoid.... a) Ghosts have a longer range, so with good enough micro, you can negate that. And with Marauders' already incredibly efficient damage vs. every armored unit, storms can punish that effectively. b) Can you imagine trying to pick out the two or three ghosts in a huge bio mass to feedback? c) You can either choose to feedback medivacs or storm the army.If you storm and let them retreat, Medivacs can heal up, run out of energy, and be un-feedbackable. If you feedback the medivacs, the now fearlessly stimmed army could roll you over. d) Terran bio ball is SO much cheaper compared to the Toss ball. I play Terran, and I have no problem with the balance of HT. Now Infestors.... :p Oh really?? So basically ALL a terran has to do to win a TvP is : 1) Have the perfect unit mix 2) Have perfect stutter step micro 3) Have 50 population of vikings to kill 2 collossus 4) Cloaked ghost to snipe/EMP HT (always while stutterstepping, EZPZ) 5) Have low energy medivacs Not mentionning how marauders suck against zelots. On the protoss side : 1) A move 2) Try feedback or storm even if not needed, cause you want to be using some of your crazy apms and prevent yourself fro falling asleep. PS: i am playing random, i know matchup from both sides. Lol if you play random why do you sound so incredibly biased? 1) Protoss has the have the perfect unit mix to take care of the terran army as well. Ghosts are already going to be in there, it's a matter of when you add vikings to the equation instead of constantly switching between ghosts and vikings. While protoss can produce high templar off just gateways you can produce just ghosts off of barracks, and protoss creates colossi out of the robo while you create your vikings out of a separate production facility as well. More terrans should try massing up orbital commands in the late game and scanning often to see the protoss unit mixture and if the robos are being used. An orbital command will pay for itself in the late game after 3 mules. If protoss is able to create high templar and colossi the terran should have enough econ to make ghosts and vikings. 2) Stutter step micro is not that difficult in the first place? 3) No? Also take into account that the protoss anti-air tends to lose to marauders/ghosts anyway so the protoss is also investing into stalkers when he would prefer to have chargelots. You can also land your vikings to deal damage and tank chargelot shots, they'll be less upgraded but in the late game they should be at least 2/2 anyway. Obviously you would prefer to have those resources sunk into more medivacs or ghosts but both of those units are already excellent in the numbers you will have. 4) EMP and snipe generally happens in the beginning of the battle, I don't think I see many terrans EMPing the entire battle? That'd be a lot of ghosts. The protoss side casts guardian shield, feedbacks, storms (templar have to be babysat as well because they are so slow they'll trail behind) positions stalkers to attempt to intercept vikings. Terran can also often draw the chargelots far away from the slower colossi and high templar and you cant run the chargelots back to the rest of the army. It's completely fine, don't whine about how difficult it is for you at the masters level especially if you actually are random, game balance isn't designed around that. Thorzain tends to do amazingly versus protoss with around 180 apm average, MC has around 300 and Naniwa has around 230-250. It's just as micro intensive from both sides. Not to take away the effort put into your post, but there's not much point cluttering the thread responding to trolls or idiots, just let the mods do their job.
Yeah, sorry. :|
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On August 16 2011 09:39 Heavenly wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2011 09:24 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:43 whoopingchow wrote:On August 16 2011 07:30 Xenogears wrote:On August 16 2011 07:23 sleepingdog wrote:
On the EMP-thing: terrans might not realize or like to admit this, but EMP is actually storm and feedback combined vs protoss. It instantly takes away a huge part of "hitpoints" and takes away the ability to cast.
Feedback has never been about "killing" stuff (except maybe medivac drops) but always about preventing the opponent from casting. EMP dominates because, furthermore, ghosts can cloak.
This means, the terran only has to cloak and hit EMP, while the toss has to have perfect observer-control to spot the ghosts, then feedback them, and THEN hopefully have some HTs with energy left for storm. Usually, on the non-pro-level, you see a clumped up terran and a clumped up toss moving against each other......then if the terran hits EMP before toss hits storms it's gg, if the toss hits a storm the terran CAN STILL EMP and it will be even (unless terran takes a shower in storms).
Protoss has to spread templars (which is what terrans always tell protoss), terran doesn't have to spread because a) storm is not "instant", you can move out of it and b) even if you take some damage you still have the medivac-heal, which means the toss better have either multiple storms or colossi to finish the job. So honestly? no, I see much more terran free-wins because toss gets all HTs EMPed than I see toss free-wins because they hit 2-3 good storms.
Overall, I think it is balanced because toss only has to a-move chargelots while terran has to kite them. Also terran has to balance against the colossi/templar composition while toss has the "first mover advantage" there. But the EMP vs storm battle is definitely more challenging/micro-demanding on the toss-part.
Bull***t bro, Feedback KILLS stuff, and Storm > EMP in terms of damages, don't even get me started.... You kill armies with storm (and no you can't dodge...), and you remove shield with EMP which is most of the time less an amount than HP... That's the exact post the OP was hoping to avoid.... a) Ghosts have a longer range, so with good enough micro, you can negate that. And with Marauders' already incredibly efficient damage vs. every armored unit, storms can punish that effectively. b) Can you imagine trying to pick out the two or three ghosts in a huge bio mass to feedback? c) You can either choose to feedback medivacs or storm the army.If you storm and let them retreat, Medivacs can heal up, run out of energy, and be un-feedbackable. If you feedback the medivacs, the now fearlessly stimmed army could roll you over. d) Terran bio ball is SO much cheaper compared to the Toss ball. I play Terran, and I have no problem with the balance of HT. Now Infestors.... :p Oh really?? So basically ALL a terran has to do to win a TvP is : 1) Have the perfect unit mix 2) Have perfect stutter step micro 3) Have 50 population of vikings to kill 2 collossus 4) Cloaked ghost to snipe/EMP HT (always while stutterstepping, EZPZ) 5) Have low energy medivacs Not mentionning how marauders suck against zelots. On the protoss side : 1) A move 2) Try feedback or storm even if not needed, cause you want to be using some of your crazy apms and prevent yourself fro falling asleep. PS: i am playing random, i know matchup from both sides. + Show Spoiler +Lol if you play random why do you sound so incredibly biased?
1) Protoss has the have the perfect unit mix to take care of the terran army as well. Ghosts are already going to be in there, it's a matter of when you add vikings to the equation instead of constantly switching between ghosts and vikings. While protoss can produce high templar off just gateways you can produce just ghosts off of barracks, and protoss creates colossi out of the robo while you create your vikings out of a separate production facility as well. More terrans should try massing up orbital commands in the late game and scanning often to see the protoss unit mixture and if the robos are being used. An orbital command will pay for itself in the late game after 3 mules. If protoss is able to create high templar and colossi the terran should have enough econ to make ghosts and vikings.
2) Stutter step micro is not that difficult in the first place?
3) No? Also take into account that the protoss anti-air tends to lose to marauders/ghosts anyway so the protoss is also investing into stalkers when he would prefer to have chargelots. You can also land your vikings to deal damage and tank chargelot shots, they'll be less upgraded but in the late game they should be at least 2/2 anyway. Obviously you would prefer to have those resources sunk into more medivacs or ghosts but both of those units are already excellent in the numbers you will have.
4) EMP and snipe generally happens in the beginning of the battle, I don't think I see many terrans EMPing the entire battle? That'd be a lot of ghosts.
The protoss side casts guardian shield, feedbacks, storms (templar have to be babysat as well because they are so slow they'll trail behind) positions stalkers to attempt to intercept vikings. Terran can also often draw the chargelots far away from the slower colossi and high templar and you cant run the chargelots back to the rest of the army.
It's completely fine, don't whine about how difficult it is for you at the masters level especially if you actually are random, game balance isn't designed around that. Thorzain tends to do amazingly versus protoss with around 180 apm average, MC has around 300 and Naniwa has around 230-250. It's just as micro intensive from both sides.
Not to take away the effort put into your post, but there's not much point cluttering the thread responding to trolls or idiots, just let the mods do their job.
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On August 16 2011 09:41 EricCartman wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I have been trying really really hard to play tvz vs a mass infestor style play. Essentially, the zerg gets a ton of spine crawlers both in his main and natural and techs hard.
2 Styles of play I've tried:
1. Drop play
2. Early Marine tank push
Both these styles fail the moment the infestor pops out. I've tried to spread my marines and all that.. even then it doesnt really work well.
Going for a quick 3rd is risky especially with a billion speedlings running around the map. I feel the infestor damage needs to be nerfed asap. It is just too much being able to do 36 damage a hit. Don't forget those infested terrans that will soak up tank damage.
I've gone for cloaked ghosts builds and while its effective, it really takes a toll on ur resources as the researches are heavy. Even then a lucky fungal just obliterates the ghosts.
I was happy with the infestor damage etc before the buff. When 2 infestors can kill a whole control group of marines, I think there has to be something done about it.
Did you try the Slayers BHF / Marine elevator play?
It seems like that style shuts down mass ling / infestor play incredible hard.
It hits relatively early, even before mutas are out, and as far as i know, Infestor with glands upgrade
pop around the same time.
Especially against ling heavy composition BHF / Marine should play out incredibly well.
Get a good position, micro your units well, spread or go for drops with BHF / Marines.
Infestor / Ling play shuts down those early marine tank pushs really well, but so do ling / mutas.
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Protoss could be made more micro intensive/rewarding by lowering the charge cooldown when autocast is turned off. Then we'd get to see MC do some sick surrounds!
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A few notes. (Disclaimer; I'm a zerg player.)
I do agree with VileHawk's statements here:
TvP? this is the most obvious Terran is stronger early game, Protoss is stronger late game
ZvT? Terran is stronger early game, Zerg is stronger late game
ZvP? A bit tricky, but for the most part Protoss is stronger early game, and Zerg is stronger in the late game
Well; I won't comment on TvP; but I do watch a lot of pro-gaming and this seems to be the general consensus.
ZvT midgame also seems pretty T favored, because T can have a very strong Thor/Hellion/Tank army before Z effectively has broodlords. Granted; Muta's can do a lot of harass, but I'm a bit worried that if T are going to discover their upgrades (neoframe and the longer range) those turrets will become very invisible. However; let me state a few thoughts. I do not claim to be a specialist, I just like giving my unsubstantiated opinion.
One of the problems, I feel, is the problem that T can do some fucktarded strong early game all ins. (For example; the famous 3 rax before orbital, wall of at the bottom.) I think I have a very original buff to counter this early game all ins: make the fact that terrans can shoot up an upgrade.
It doesn't even have to cost gas/minerals (it can basically be 'free'), only take time. (For all I care it can be researched from reactor/barrack itself.) What would this solve? It would solve the problem that Z has in scouting T. If the t goes for some really fast stim all in (or something similar) he wouldn't have time to research the marine shooting up and the scout would come through.
On the other hand; in tvp; the terran would be kind of forced to research it (void rays, anyone?). if they go for some really fast all in, they might die to a void ray rush.
What this, effectively, does is slowing down terran timing pushes _if_ they want to (1) not be scouted (vs zerg) and (2) not bo-loose (vs p). Obviously; I'm not saying that this is bullet proof. And I do realize it is a nerf. (How big the nerf is, would depend on how long it would take for this to research and where it is availble. If it was a 10 second research thingy, it wouldn't be a big nerf.)
I'm relatively confident that delaying the possibility for terran to do an unscouted all inish attack (vs zerg) or creating the possibility to insta loose against void ray (and thus slowing the first push) would solve some early game problems.
Another problem I see is the way forcefield is balanced. It's necessary for protoss to survive the early game (especially against T, but also against Z), but they can also cause some enormous early game havoc. (Forcefielding the wall, anyone?)
The problem isn't necessarily that they shouldn't be able to ff the wall - 'you have to be careful' - but it's pretty unforgiving in general. The same, indeed, with fungal. It's impossible to do anything when fungaled, it's pretty impossible to do anything when properly forcefielded. (Also; forcefields can be damn powerful with timing attacks, but that's a whole different matter.)
In general; a big problem in starcraft 2 is that somethings are fucktardedly unforgiving, such as: badly handling blue flame hellions, not spotting +2 baneling drops, allowing your ramp to be forcefielded. The fact that these thinks can really ruin your game instantly seems just like a bad deal for a game. I'm not sure how to deal with the blue flame hellion thingy, though. Requiring an armory seems ok, however; it means that there is no real effective way to stop zerg from droning like a fucking mad man. (All other harass possibilities (banshees, drops, etc.) are way easier to handle and, if handled badly, way more forgiving, unless you really and utterly screw up.)
To solve the infestor problem; I think nerfing fungal growth (e.g. stun and less base damage), but buffing neural parasite's range would seem like the best idea. Neural requires some micro to protect your infestor, if you have casted a fungal, they can't do shit about it. Buffing neural range would also help with the (imo existing) problem of heavy mech timing pushes before broodlords.
I would say that the damage output against armored - especially stalkers - does remain kind of necessary. I really know of no other way to deal with mass blink stalkers than the damage output of fungal, combined with either lings or hydra. (And even hydra's aren't all that well.)
Something else that irritates me is the fact that terran has a shit ton of upgrades they literally never use. Protoss has a few (observer and warp prism speed, anyone?). I can't think of a single zerg upgrade I've never used, to be honest. Why not provide more of these different upgrades to all the races? I would love to see a lot of upgrades that really can change the way the game works.
Just thinking out loud; making creep increase the regeneration of health, allowing medivacs to heal 2 units at once, increasing shield regeneration for protoss, allowing nydussen to not die instantly, same for warp prisms, allowing reactors to create 3 units at once, allowing banelings to move underground, make templars morph into archons faster, allow interceptors to heal at a certain rate when inside carriers, longer range for crawlers/cannons, make a certain zerg unit able to cliff jump (I'm think hydra; because it's so slow off creep; would be helish in z v z, though). I'm sure you guys can think of other examples as well. That way; if you invest in something, you can make it more robuust, but, again, you have invested more in it. It would create more possibilities and more different games.
If you have more options like that, it would probably be harder to balance the game initially, but the creation of more options, also gives more options to tweak balance, no?
Another balance change I have suggested in the past was a faster build time for spine crawlers. (Our 'reactionary' defense that is up and running after the attack already did all the damage.) However; since this would be hard in z v z, it could be combined with giving queen a slightly _melee_ buff attack against buildings. This would also help with the dreaded bunker rushes (or bunker contains) in z v t as well. I'm aware this would be a zerg buff but I do think this specific problem is a real one.
I have no serious 'solution' to the late game zerg force against t. (I think z can basically steam roll terran, given equal skill, when broodlord/infestor is on the map.) Buffing vikings against armored would suck in t v p, buffing thor air range might work, but that would deny muta harass even further. I'm open to any interesting insights regarding that.
Oh, and in closing; the game really should have (1) less of these 'enormously unforgiving' actions, and (2) more options to excell in skill. (Not allowing unlimited unit control in one control group, auto mining workers and stuff like that are probably untouchable, but still.)
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On August 16 2011 09:47 Techno wrote:
Protoss could be made more micro intensive/rewarding by lowering the charge cooldown when autocast is turned off. Then we'd get to see MC do some sick surrounds!
I love suggestions like this. It doesn't interfere with lower level mechanics (they can just leave it on) but it creates awesome possibilities on higher league.
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On August 16 2011 09:47 Techno wrote:
Protoss could be made more micro intensive/rewarding by lowering the charge cooldown when autocast is turned off. Then we'd get to see MC do some sick surrounds!
That would be interesting. Do you have to active charge individually for each zealot when charge is turned off auto-cast? Or can you box all your zealots and hit C (or whatever it is) once? If it's the latter, hitting C once isn't much of a burden for the lower cooldown...
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EPT
