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On September 07 2011 03:32 Orcasgt24 wrote:
Best MULE idea ever, nerf income by 35%. Those stupid things bring in way to much cash.
I'm not a huge fan of the MULE, I never thought it was an entirely fair unit. Nerfing the amount of minerals it harvests by a certain percentage would be fair in my opinion. The way it is now allows Terran to recover from cheese, all-ins, and just all around poor play too easily.
I'm just going to throw this out and see what you guys think, it's something that crossed my mind but I haven't really put any thought into how it would affect Terran's gameplay since I don't play Terran. Anyhow, what if after building an orbital, Terran had to research the ability to either MULE with it or scan with it? If they chose to MULE, they would have to get their engineering bay out and make a turret for detection, or go the starport route and get a raven.
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On September 07 2011 03:06 Belial88 wrote:
Then don't FFE. I think it's a bad build, because it relies way too much on doing a 2 base pressure (although the imbalance in the game allows for Protoss to just take a fast third and mass up if they want). 3 gate sentry and 1 gate expand are infinitely better builds - they automatically deny fast thirds from Zerg. It's more like Zerg takes a fast third in response to the 'pressure' of the FE from P, and defending a FFE is a lot easier than defending a third (especially on those stupid laddder maps with rocks), but the payoff is a lot higher so. You know. Don't FFE.
I don't know about your point about korean pros figuring things out. What about the queen, that was never figured out in BW for 11 years. What about the queen in SC2, that wasn't figured out for months (it was never changed in balance). What about the infestor (oh yea it was a shitty unit before patched). So it's very possible the korean pros don't know what the 'best' thing to do is, it's just they do a certain thing, best (rewatch season 1 and 2 of the GSL - ie MKP's mass marine style TvZ would never work against Zerg who know how to make more than 44 drones, which is any diamond leaguer nowadays, and they know ling/bane and even pure ling owns pure marine, esp. better than pure bane).
From the looks of it, it seems right now Protoss are holding fast to an old addage from about 2-3 months ago - that you must pressure Zerg or they go out of control. This is after the whole "lets mass up a crazy deathball" phase, which, may I remind you, is when P had extremely high winrates over Zerg, but the infestor came out, Losira's roach/ling timing came out, and Nestea's super fast third strat against the ever increasingly popular FFE build came out. Protoss are also fixated on MC's saying of "Stargate is imbalanced" (which most Zerg's disagree with rofl) and the ladder popularity of Mass blink stalkers.
First off, Protoss never really had "extremely high winrates over Zerg" - or, at the very least, for each time Protoss has the advantage in the matchup, there's a moment later on where the Zerg gets a similar advantage. The "deathball phase" resulted in some stupid games, but there was never any kind of humongous imbalance there.
Secondly, I'm not sure how to read the entirety of your post. On one hand, you declare FFE a "bad build", presumably because it has no potential for early pressure or harassment. On the other you say that "I must pressure Zerg or they go out of control" is an old adage, and presumably outdated. So, what is is that you think Protoss players should do? 3 Gate FE can put on some decent pressure, but it's not exactly hard to be safe from that as a Zerg player. Plus, doing that push delays tech and therefore the ability to take a third. The real problem is that the nature of Warpgates can make any effective pressure a Protoss can do into an unstoppable all-in. So, the pressure is crap, in order for the all-in to be stoppable. That's why Protoss can't 2 Rax or Reactor Hellion.
Finally, the primary reason deathball went out of style wasn't the Infestor buff, but the discovery of Baneling drops. Whenever a Protoss tried deathballin' against a Korean Zerg, that is almost always what they get. You can watch something like Leenock vs Tassadar game 1 during July's Code A, where a Zerg stays even on bases against a Protoss, and then completely rolls him in a 4 base vs 4 base maxed army battle. Or what Nerchio did against Yong in the final game of the latest TLOpen. It's not even that bad with Stalker/Colossus, but HTs (which are the counter to Infestors) and Sentries, are impossible to save from Bling drops.
On September 07 2011 03:06 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +That being said, the counter to Zerg's infestors is to essentially drop and kill buildings and harass ... which will be helped with the much needed warp prism buff. Unlike ghosts which can be healed and does a shitton of DPS with regular shots, HT which can turn into archons and be morphed anywhere, instantly, and both which are cheaper and come out quicker and shorter tech paths, the infestor is killed instantly by FB (and is a big fat target) and is made useless when hit by EMP. While drop is a great 'counter', so is expanding (infestors lack offensive capability compared to say, mutas, or more roaches) and just getting the counter-caster. A ling/Infestor army is really scary, but suddenly turns into a joke of just pure ling when you hit EMP or FB with just 3-4 HT/Ghosts.
... The tech path for HTs is shorter than for Ghosts?
As for the "lack of offensive capability" of the Infestor, I'll just direct you to the game between CoCa and HuK in MLG Raleigh group stages, on TDA. HuK FFEs, and takes a third before the 10 min mark. Coca speedling expands, rushes to Infestors on 2 bases, and then does a Ling/Infestor timing attack which kills HuK's third and puts him way behind. The battle was hilariously onesided, and all the Infestors survived easily.
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No he's saying HTs can come out before infestors. If you were going to go for HT before a normal infestor timing you'd have what, a pair of feedbacks and no army?
It's like when people recommend HT rushing versus terran 1/1/1.
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On September 07 2011 03:06 Belial88 wrote:
Unlike ghosts which can be healed and does a shitton of DPS with regular shots, HT which can turn into archons and be morphed anywhere, instantly, and both which are cheaper and come out quicker and shorter tech paths, the infestor is killed instantly by FB (and is a big fat target) and is made useless when hit by EMP.
While drop is a great 'counter', so is expanding (infestors lack offensive capability compared to say, mutas, or more roaches) and just getting the counter-caster. A ling/Infestor army is really scary, but suddenly turns into a joke of just pure ling when you hit EMP or FB with just 3-4 HT/Ghosts.
The tech path to HT is longer than the tech path to infestor. You really should try a few games as protoss if you dont know the tech paths.
Overlord > Pool > Lair > Infestation pit > Infestor vs Pylon > Gateway > Cybernetics Core > Twilight Council > Templar Archives > Warp in.
In a realistic game whoever expands the least should be able to get their unit out first, ofcourse. Both an infestor or a HT could be out within 6 minutes, but no one is going 1 base infestor or 1 base high templar in a real game.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On September 07 2011 03:42 sharktopus. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 03:32 Orcasgt24 wrote:
Best MULE idea ever, nerf income by 35%. Those stupid things bring in way to much cash. I'm not a huge fan of the MULE, I never thought it was an entirely fair unit. Nerfing the amount of minerals it harvests by a certain percentage would be fair in my opinion. The way it is now allows Terran to recover from cheese, all-ins, and just all around poor play too easily. I'm just going to throw this out and see what you guys think, it's something that crossed my mind but I haven't really put any thought into how it would affect Terran's gameplay since I don't play Terran. Anyhow, what if after building an orbital, Terran had to research the ability to either MULE with it or scan with it? If they chose to MULE, they would have to get their engineering bay out and make a turret for detection, or go the starport route and get a raven.
That sounds reasonable, but bear in mind that it's slightly more difficult to get out a raven and an observer or and overseer. It costs 425 gas to tech to and get a raven (factory, starport, tech lab, raven), whereas an overseer costs 200 gas (lair, overseer) and an observer costs 200 gas (robotics facility, observer). Terran has the scans as stop-gap detection to account for the difficulty of reaching raven tech.
Obviously, it's not a huge issue, and protoss and zerg both use a lot of gas / don't mine a lot of a gas in their standard FEs, which makes getting out their observers more difficult, but as it stands, teching to starport and using a tech lab on it to make a raven is pretty hard-- and you need mobile detection to move out against DTs. Bear in mind that Terran DOES have to cut scvs to make an orbital command, since you can't make scvs during morph time.
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First off, Protoss never really had "extremely high winrates over Zerg" - or, at the very least, for each time Protoss has the advantage in the matchup, there's a moment later on where the Zerg gets a similar advantage. The "deathball phase" resulted in some stupid games, but there was never any kind of humongous imbalance there.
Yes there was. Blizzard completely redesigned a unit because of the deathball. And it's not like Blizzard buffed the Corruptor or created an anti-armor unit to fit a certain role, or redesigned maybe hydras which are good against voids but just too weak against colossi, but they buffed a unit that doesn't really counter the deathball units at all, but the deathball play style (a clump of unmicro'd units). It's a band-aid fix. Not to mention HT just nullify infestors so hard (deathball+3-4 HT owns infestors).
On one hand, you declare FFE a "bad build", presumably because it has no potential for early pressure or harassment. On the other you say that "I must pressure Zerg or they go out of control" is an old adage, and presumably outdated. So, what is is that you think Protoss players should do? 3 Gate FE can put on some decent pressure, but it's not exactly hard to be safe from that as a Zerg player. Plus, doing that push delays tech and therefore the ability to take a third. The real problem is that the nature of Warpgates can make any effective pressure a Protoss can do into an unstoppable all-in. So, the pressure is crap, in order for the all-in to be stoppable. That's why Protoss can't 2 Rax or Reactor Hellion.
I'm not saying the addage of pressuring Zerg is outdated, but rather, it is the focus of Protoss builds (to the complete detriment of macro or long term game plan). Pressure is great, but not when macro is sacrificed, especially with an - imho - imbalanced late game race.
3 gate FE, Nexus first, and 1 gate FE are great builds. It has nothing to do with safe or not, it's that they automatically put on pressure against Zerg. If let unpressured, Zerg takes a fast third. But you just can't take a fast third against 3 gate FE, or even 1 gate FE, or even nexus first w/o forge.
I don't know about your warp gate stuff. I think blizz has said that warp-gate is 'troublesome' and many say it's broken, but I don't think so (if anything, it's one of those imbalanced things, just like storm is imbalanced, just like EMP is imbalanced, just like larva inject and mule is imbalanced, it all kind of evens out). Regardless, 3 gate sentry expand allows for a lot of pressure, and a lot of the pressure Protoss can do is about what they 'can' do, not what they DO do, does that make sense?
I guess I could agree that Protoss does lack early game harass like reapers or hellions. Units like stargate and DT are great at harass, but are so costly that if they don't do huge damage then the Protoss has pretty much lost the game.
Finally, the primary reason deathball went out of style wasn't the Infestor buff, but the discovery of Baneling drops. Whenever a Protoss tried deathballin' against a Korean Zerg, that is almost always what they get. You can watch something like Leenock vs Tassadar game 1 during July's Code A, where a Zerg stays even on bases against a Protoss, and then completely rolls him in a 4 base vs 4 base maxed army battle. Or what Nerchio did against Yong in the final game of the latest TLOpen. It's not even that bad with Stalker/Colossus, but HTs (which are the counter to Infestors) and Sentries, are impossible to save from Bling drops.
I'll watch the games. I know baneling drops got popular right when the infestor was buffed, and is amazing.
... The tech path for HTs is shorter than for Ghosts?
No, the tech path for both ghosts and HT is shorter than infestors.
As for the "lack of offensive capability" of the Infestor, I'll just direct you to the game between CoCa and HuK in MLG Raleigh group stages, on TDA. HuK FFEs, and takes a third before the 10 min mark. Coca speedling expands, rushes to Infestors on 2 bases, and then does a Ling/Infestor timing attack which kills HuK's third and puts him way behind. The battle was hilariously onesided, and all the Infestors survived easily.
The core of the build was the mass lings. If that money was put into roaches, Huk would have hurt as well. There are interesting ling/infestor timings but it severely hurts drone counts (Coca had under 40 drones and no third).
The tech path to HT is longer than the tech path to infestor. You really should try a few games as protoss if you dont know the tech paths.
Overlord > Pool > Lair > Infestation pit > Infestor vs Pylon > Gateway > Cybernetics Core > Twilight Council > Templar Archives > Warp in.
Lair: 80
Infestation Pit: 50
Adrenal Glands - Infestor Build Time: 31
Infestor Build Time: 50
Twilight Council: 50
Templar Archives: 50
HT: Warp in immediately (2-3 seconds)
Even assuming you already had twilight council (say you opened blink) and Zerg has lair (say he just got lair, and wasn't sure where to go yet), infestors take longer.
Using overlord, pool, pylon, gateway, and cybercore is a bit goofy. I'm talking about how long does it take to get HT or Infestors as a reaction to what an opponent is doing, not blindly rushing to it. In which case, I assure you, Protoss rushing HT or archons is much stronger than Zerg rushing infestors on 1 base.
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+ Show Spoiler [GSL Up/Down day 1] +After watching Alicia vs Supernova and Byun it's pretty clear to me that Terrans are forced to 1/1/1 or 2-1-0. Byun played well while Alicia just turtled into lategame tech and easily had way too much dps. Playing vs Protoss lategame with Archons, Templars, Colossi, all of which do splash damage is too difficult to win against. You're looking at 3x the splash damage from 3 different units and the entire 200/200 Terran army melts in 2 seconds while the Protoss loses almost nothing.
Frankly, all the splash damage is making this game unbalanced. Look at hellions. You can't even pull workers to defend vs a rush because the hellions will roast them. In BW, vultures were still good at killing workers w/o making everything imba. Being able to pull workers to defend a rush is a crucial ability for macro gamers.
Archons/Templars/Colossi
Broodlords+tank splash+fungals
Hellions
Splash damage + auto-clumping = the source of imba.
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MULEing is a macro mechanic balanced against P's ability to chrono probes and Z's ability to build multiple drones at once. If MULEs are nerfed, Terrans needs some other way to boost SCV production or income. Or everything need to be rebalanced.
On September 07 2011 04:19 vnlegend wrote:+ Show Spoiler [GSL Up/Down day 1] +After watching Alicia vs Supernova and Byun it's pretty clear to me that Terrans are forced to 1/1/1 or 2-1-0. Byun played well while Alicia just turtled into lategame tech and easily had way too much dps. Playing vs Protoss lategame with Archons, Templars, Colossi, all of which do splash damage is too difficult to win against. You're looking at 3x the splash damage from 3 different units and the entire 200/200 Terran army melts in 2 seconds while the Protoss loses almost nothing.
Frankly, all the splash damage is making this game unbalanced. Look at hellions. You can't even pull workers to defend vs a rush because the hellions will roast them. In BW, vultures were still good at killing workers w/o making everything imba. Being able to pull workers to defend a rush is a crucial ability for macro gamers. Archons/Templars/Colossi Broodlords+tank splash+fungals Hellions Splash damage + auto-clumping = the source of imba.
This is interesting. Hellions are the only early game unit on your list.
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I can't believe the number of people who don't realize that MC was joking when he said "Stargate units imba."
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On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:
Lair: 80
Infestation Pit: 50
Adrenal Glands - Infestor Build Time: 31
Infestor Build Time: 50
Twilight Council: 50
Templar Archives: 50
HT: Warp in immediately (2-3 seconds)
Even assuming you already had twilight council (say you opened blink) and Zerg has lair (say he just got lair, and wasn't sure where to go yet), infestors take longer.
Using overlord, pool, pylon, gateway, and cybercore is a bit goofy. I'm talking about how long does it take to get HT or Infestors as a reaction to what an opponent is doing, not blindly rushing to it. In which case, I assure you, Protoss rushing HT or archons is much stronger than Zerg rushing infestors on 1 base.
First off, you originally stated that the TECH TREE for infestors was longer than HT (it isn't.) T2 vs T3 unit there bud. Teching to HT takes as long as techning to carriers for cryin' out loud.
Secondly, you ought to account for cybercore in there. I assure you, zergs will have the ability to go lair before protoss can build twilight for that very reason, even on one base.
Third, if you account for Adrenal glands taking up time, then you ought to take into consideration the amount of time it takes for HT to build up the energy it needs for storms.
Fourth, you forgot to include storm research in there (expensive and time consuming). The fact that fungal doesnt need to be researched should mean that storm research time/cost needs to be taken into consideration.
Re-calculating, you'll find it easier/faster to get infestors than HT.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On September 07 2011 04:36 Rob28 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:
Lair: 80
Infestation Pit: 50
Adrenal Glands - Infestor Build Time: 31
Infestor Build Time: 50
Twilight Council: 50
Templar Archives: 50
HT: Warp in immediately (2-3 seconds)
Even assuming you already had twilight council (say you opened blink) and Zerg has lair (say he just got lair, and wasn't sure where to go yet), infestors take longer.
Using overlord, pool, pylon, gateway, and cybercore is a bit goofy. I'm talking about how long does it take to get HT or Infestors as a reaction to what an opponent is doing, not blindly rushing to it. In which case, I assure you, Protoss rushing HT or archons is much stronger than Zerg rushing infestors on 1 base. First off, you originally stated that the TECH TREE for infestors was longer than HT (it isn't.) T2 vs T3 unit there bud. Teching to HT takes as long as techning to carriers for cryin' out loud. Secondly, you ought to account for cybercore in there. I assure you, zergs will have the ability to go lair before protoss can build twilight for that very reason, even on one base. Third, if you account for Adrenal glands taking up time, then you ought to take into consideration the amount of time it takes for HT to build up the energy it needs for storms. Fourth, you forgot to include storm research in there (expensive and time consuming). The fact that fungal doesnt need to be researched should mean that storm research time/cost needs to be taken into consideration. Re-calculating, you'll find it easier/faster to get infestors than HT.
It's "Pathogen Glands" actually; "Adrenal Glands" are commonly known as "Zergling Crack", whereas the "Pathogon Glands" are "Infestor Energy" in common parlance.
That being said, I believe it is reasonable and acceptable that different races be able to tech to different units at different speeds; this is surely OK within a balanced game.
EDIT: It's also worth noting that there are other things affecting the quickness of tech; build orders. A lot of the time you'll see zerg spending his first 100 gas on speed, then not mining gas until 2 base saturation, etc-- or a Protoss player going for a Forge FE, significantly delaying his initial gateway, but then rushing for twilight after it, or something. Bear in mind that not everyone techs straight to whatever unit, and often this isn't possible.
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Here's the difference: going infestors as Zerg does not represent a risky investment in tech. You won't ever attack to realize that your army composition is useless. Compare protoss: if you go HTs and he goes anything but lings, hydras and/or infestors, you've lost. yeah you can try to switch into archon play, but archons are intensely expensive and still get affected by fungal.
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On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:
Yes there was. Blizzard completely redesigned a unit because of the deathball. And it's not like Blizzard buffed the Corruptor or created an anti-armor unit to fit a certain role, or redesigned maybe hydras which are good against voids but just too weak against colossi, but they buffed a unit that doesn't really counter the deathball units at all, but the deathball play style (a clump of unmicro'd units). It's a band-aid fix. Not to mention HT just nullify infestors so hard (deathball+3-4 HT owns infestors).
With all due respect, the winrates on TLPD show nothing of the sort: http://i.imgur.com/Jvlvy.png.
The matchup was nearly balanced in competitive play at the time the 1.3.0 patch was deployed. From that point on, Zerg has enjoyed a noticable lead.
I do know why Blizzard buffed the Infestor. What I don't necessarily know, is whether that buff was necessary.
On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:
I'm not saying the addage of pressuring Zerg is outdated, but rather, it is the focus of Protoss builds (to the complete detriment of macro or long term game plan). Pressure is great, but not when macro is sacrificed, especially with an - imho - imbalanced late game race.
3 gate FE, Nexus first, and 1 gate FE are great builds. It has nothing to do with safe or not, it's that they automatically put on pressure against Zerg. If let unpressured, Zerg takes a fast third. But you just can't take a fast third against 3 gate FE, or even 1 gate FE, or even nexus first w/o forge.
I don't know about your warp gate stuff. I think blizz has said that warp-gate is 'troublesome' and many say it's broken, but I don't think so (if anything, it's one of those imbalanced things, just like storm is imbalanced, just like EMP is imbalanced, just like larva inject and mule is imbalanced, it all kind of evens out). Regardless, 3 gate sentry expand allows for a lot of pressure, and a lot of the pressure Protoss can do is about what they 'can' do, not what they DO do, does that make sense?
I suppose we'll need to agree to disagree then, because I don't feel like Protoss late game is imbalanced. To the other point, as a macro player through and through, I find maintaining a reasonable level of macro and a potential for aggression, while expanding, really difficult. I feel like my race isn't designed to do that, which is the main problem I suppose.
Don't really want to digress with the Warpgate stuff, but I do think it's an inherently unbalanced mechanic. Being able to ignore travel distance with reinforcements fucks with general RTS principles far more than any aoe damage spells, and imo the game would be better without it. I have a similar opinion about Spawn Larvae, btw.
On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:
The core of the build was the mass lings. If that money was put into roaches, Huk would have hurt as well. There are interesting ling/infestor timings but it severely hurts drone counts (Coca had under 40 drones and no third).
That's not the point at all. The point is, that scouting Infestors doesn't mean you can take a fast third as Protoss, because they can, and will, kill it. The same is true for Roaches, of course, but nobody takes fast thirds against Roaches.
You wanted "offensive potential" with Ling/Infestor - there you go. If that was just mass-ling, HuK would've defended easily, which is why I don't think it's accurate to call lings the "core"of that build. There were just used as meatshields to let Infestors do their magic and to secure their escape.
On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:
No, the tech path for both ghosts and HT is shorter than infestors.
On September 07 2011 04:16 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +The tech path to HT is longer than the tech path to infestor. You really should try a few games as protoss if you dont know the tech paths.
Overlord > Pool > Lair > Infestation pit > Infestor vs Pylon > Gateway > Cybernetics Core > Twilight Council > Templar Archives > Warp in. Lair: 80 Infestation Pit: 50 Adrenal Glands - Infestor Build Time: 31 Infestor Build Time: 50 Twilight Council: 50 Templar Archives: 50 HT: Warp in immediately (2-3 seconds) Even assuming you already had twilight council (say you opened blink) and Zerg has lair (say he just got lair, and wasn't sure where to go yet), infestors take longer. Using overlord, pool, pylon, gateway, and cybercore is a bit goofy. I'm talking about how long does it take to get HT or Infestors as a reaction to what an opponent is doing, not blindly rushing to it. In which case, I assure you, Protoss rushing HT or archons is much stronger than Zerg rushing infestors on 1 base.
This, I think, is blatantly untrue. As a Zerg, you will have Lair relatively early no matter what you do. And if you have Lair, the Infestation Pit is right around the corner, and really cheap compared to Templar Archives. You need the energy upgrade, but the Protoss needs Storm, and Storm is more expensive.
On the other hand, a Twilight Council is a commitment to a particular tech path. You don't get one early unless you're planning on DTs, Bling, or a Chargelot/Archon timing. I often play reactively in PvZ, and if I hadn't built a Council already for whatever reason, the Zerg always has Infestors before I have HTs, even if I see his Infestation Pit the moment he builds it.
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On September 07 2011 04:15 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 03:42 sharktopus. wrote:On September 07 2011 03:32 Orcasgt24 wrote:
Best MULE idea ever, nerf income by 35%. Those stupid things bring in way to much cash. I'm not a huge fan of the MULE, I never thought it was an entirely fair unit. Nerfing the amount of minerals it harvests by a certain percentage would be fair in my opinion. The way it is now allows Terran to recover from cheese, all-ins, and just all around poor play too easily. I'm just going to throw this out and see what you guys think, it's something that crossed my mind but I haven't really put any thought into how it would affect Terran's gameplay since I don't play Terran. Anyhow, what if after building an orbital, Terran had to research the ability to either MULE with it or scan with it? If they chose to MULE, they would have to get their engineering bay out and make a turret for detection, or go the starport route and get a raven. That sounds reasonable, but bear in mind that it's slightly more difficult to get out a raven and an observer or and overseer. It costs 425 gas to tech to and get a raven (factory, starport, tech lab, raven), whereas an overseer costs 200 gas (lair, overseer) and an observer costs 200 gas (robotics facility, observer). Terran has the scans as stop-gap detection to account for the difficulty of reaching raven tech. Obviously, it's not a huge issue, and protoss and zerg both use a lot of gas / don't mine a lot of a gas in their standard FEs, which makes getting out their observers more difficult, but as it stands, teching to starport and using a tech lab on it to make a raven is pretty hard-- and you need mobile detection to move out against DTs. Bear in mind that Terran DOES have to cut scvs to make an orbital command, since you can't make scvs during morph time.
All of this is true and I agree Terran need Mules to maintain equivilant worker counts. MULES just happen to provide way to much mineral income to quickly. A decrease in the amount of minerals a MULE mined would make terrans that pull 10+ SCVs to a early game rush acctually be all-in and if stopped, dead in the water. As it stands they are just slightly behind if the SCV+whatever rush is stopped.
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First off, you originally stated that the TECH TREE for infestors was longer than HT (it isn't.) T2 vs T3 unit there bud. Teching to HT takes as long as techning to carriers for cryin' out loud.
Secondly, you ought to account for cybercore in there. I assure you, zergs will have the ability to go lair before protoss can build twilight for that very reason, even on one base.
Third, if you account for Adrenal glands taking up time, then you ought to take into consideration the amount of time it takes for HT to build up the energy it needs for storms.
I'm not talking about storms because I'm talking about:
- How long does it take for Protoss to get HT when he sees infestors?
- How long does it take Zerg to get infestors when he sees Protoss go for blink?
So no, cybernetics core and pool are a bit ridiculous to include considering Z/P always get those anyways. I'm talking about how long does it take to get HT as a response to counter infestors, or Zerg getting infestors as a response to P getting blink, or isn't 4 gating, or whatever.
This is in response to Protoss complaining that infestors are broken. I am countering that argument by saying, no, FB completely destroys infestors when their spell has to be chained/channeled, and that HT are cheaper, and come out quicker, than infestors do. This is because so many P claim HT are impossible to get on 2 base as a reaction to Infestors.
So no, HT to FB infestors, is much easier to get than it is to get infestors. If you want to talk about storm, then we can talk about NP (which is same research as storm, but then there's chrono boost, and both abilities can be applied to the unit after it is made, unlike KA/Pathogen).
Here's the difference: going infestors as Zerg does not represent a risky investment in tech. You won't ever attack to realize that your army composition is useless. Compare protoss: if you go HTs and he goes anything but lings, hydras and/or infestors, you've lost. yeah you can try to switch into archon play, but archons are intensely expensive and still get affected by fungal.
First off, infestors take a long time. It's like Protoss getting HT immediately instead of colossi in TvP. They will die in the process, unless they make mass spines or are safe to tech because the opponent is macroing hard (like FFE). It's impossible to hold mass gate pushes with infestor builds without making at least 4 spinecrawlers. Which is kind of like Protoss making 4 cannons, or Terran making 5 bunkers, to be safe.
And HT is not that bad, since it gives you twilight tech to fall back on. And we see plenty of protoss go chargelot/Archon when HT aren't viable, which smashes roach/hydra. It also owns mutas. So really, HT are only weak against roaches, but blink is very strong against roaches, and it's not hard to figure out if Zerg is making roaches or not. Even then, immortal/HT is a great combo for stomping roaches.
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Finally, the primary reason deathball went out of style wasn't the Infestor buff, but the discovery of Baneling drops. Whenever a Protoss tried deathballin' against a Korean Zerg, that is almost always what they get. You can watch something like Leenock vs Tassadar game 1 during July's Code A, where a Zerg stays even on bases against a Protoss, and then completely rolls him in a 4 base vs 4 base maxed army battle. Or what Nerchio did against Yong in the final game of the latest TLOpen. It's not even that bad with Stalker/Colossus, but HTs (which are the counter to Infestors) and Sentries, are impossible to save from Bling drops.
Oh, and those games:
Leenock vs Tassadar, Tassadar did not use forcefields, engaged out in the open with his colossi way out of position.
Nerchio vs Yong, he had no anti-air. If he had more stalkers, or void rays, instead of double robo colossi, he would've fared better.
They didn't really deathball if there's no stalkers or void rays (Yong just went pure colossi basically, and on top of that he had no HT), and Tassadar was caught horribly out of position and had no void rays. But most importantly, he was just caught way way way out of position. He should have FF'd the choke, but instead let his colossi get sniped, he blinked before the banelings got there (meaning they were on cooldown when they got there). Tassadar just majorly fucked up there.
But in neither of those games did we see VR/Colossi deathball, and HT support against infestors (if Zerg used them).
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On September 07 2011 05:07 Orcasgt24 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 04:15 Blazinghand wrote:On September 07 2011 03:42 sharktopus. wrote:On September 07 2011 03:32 Orcasgt24 wrote:
Best MULE idea ever, nerf income by 35%. Those stupid things bring in way to much cash. I'm not a huge fan of the MULE, I never thought it was an entirely fair unit. Nerfing the amount of minerals it harvests by a certain percentage would be fair in my opinion. The way it is now allows Terran to recover from cheese, all-ins, and just all around poor play too easily. I'm just going to throw this out and see what you guys think, it's something that crossed my mind but I haven't really put any thought into how it would affect Terran's gameplay since I don't play Terran. Anyhow, what if after building an orbital, Terran had to research the ability to either MULE with it or scan with it? If they chose to MULE, they would have to get their engineering bay out and make a turret for detection, or go the starport route and get a raven. That sounds reasonable, but bear in mind that it's slightly more difficult to get out a raven and an observer or and overseer. It costs 425 gas to tech to and get a raven (factory, starport, tech lab, raven), whereas an overseer costs 200 gas (lair, overseer) and an observer costs 200 gas (robotics facility, observer). Terran has the scans as stop-gap detection to account for the difficulty of reaching raven tech. Obviously, it's not a huge issue, and protoss and zerg both use a lot of gas / don't mine a lot of a gas in their standard FEs, which makes getting out their observers more difficult, but as it stands, teching to starport and using a tech lab on it to make a raven is pretty hard-- and you need mobile detection to move out against DTs. Bear in mind that Terran DOES have to cut scvs to make an orbital command, since you can't make scvs during morph time. All of this is true and I agree Terran need Mules to maintain equivilant worker counts. MULES just happen to provide way to much mineral income to quickly. A decrease in the amount of minerals a MULE mined would make terrans that pull 10+ SCVs to a early game rush acctually be all-in and if stopped, dead in the water. As it stands they are just slightly behind if the SCV+whatever rush is stopped.
A MULE gives terran the income of  an additional 4 scvs, and it takes 35 seconds to make an orbital command, costing 150 minerals. Assuming the terran player constantly calls down MULEs, this means he'll always have 4 bonus scv worth of income. At first glance, this seems like Terran just straight-up has more economy. The fact of the matter is, though, that with a couple of chrono boosts Protoss can catch up, and with the larvae mechanic so can zerg. In fact, Terran has to cut 2 scvs to begin with, so he's only up 2 scvs worth of mining when he gets his Orbital, due to the build time. With just 2 Chrono Boosts, Protoss can achieve the effective income (pre-saturation), and could all-in with the same number of probes, and leave 4 probes at home instead of a mule.
The reason marine/scv allin is strong isn't because of the mule ( though it helps; but if Terran could chrono boost out 4 bonus scvs instead it would be the same), but rather, because marines and scvs work really really well together. Marines are a ranged mineral dump, and are hugely effective against lings and zealots, and scvs are tankier than drones and probes and let you bunker rush which makes the marine even better against zealots and lings.
Rather, what the MULE really buffs is Terran 1-base play vs other races. Maximum saturation for a terran player is like 20% better than for any other race on 1 base since a MULE always adds 4 unsaturated scvs worth of income regardless of how saturated you are. This puts a lot of pressure on other races to expand in the 1 base vs 1 base situation, and, coupled with the flying CC ability, means that a terran contained to 1 base isn't that bad off since he can expo in his main, have double mule, and fly out after he breaks the contain and immediately have his natural running.
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On September 07 2011 05:09 Belial88 wrote:
And HT is not that bad, since it gives you twilight tech to fall back on. And we see plenty of protoss go chargelot/Archon when HT aren't viable, which smashes roach/hydra. It also owns mutas. So really, HT are only weak against roaches, but blink is very strong against roaches, and it's not hard to figure out if Zerg is making roaches or not. Even then, immortal/HT is a great combo for stomping roaches.
Ok, just ignore my earlier post. I don't think there's any point in trying to discuss this with you any longer.
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A zerg can drop an evo chamber as a precaution and then go on to spend only his second 100 gas on lair, while also being able to robustly defend a third base with just lings, queens and crawlers. It's ridiculous to compare infestor teching to templar teching the way you are.
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EPT
